50 Coin Uncleaned Lot

Well, I'm at wits end in trying to figure out those two coins. If you guys don't mind I may try posting at FORVM Ancient Coins soon to see if they know. I never posted over there before, might as well try to get one post in? lol





Now I have a couple I just pulled out of the lot. I'm pretty sure cleaning the coins more ain't going to improve them much, might even ruin them perhaps. I would appreciate some help with these as well. Some late Roman coins are really difficult to figure out sometimes as you guys know.



This coin, I flipped the reverse. Let's see if it's right now. I ain't kidding, when you look at this coin in hand it's like an optical illusion to me. It's hard to tell what is top or bottom on the reverse. The obverse doesn't look like the common engraving style for the era, not to me anyways. Thanks to BenByField for the tip on the reverse.



This is another coin I pulled out of the lot that more cleaning probably won't do it any good. The coin is worn really bad and I don't know what emperor it is. I would appreciate some help from the late Roman experts. lol

Over time I will be posting more. I'm taking my time cleaning the lot and stretching it out until I can get more coins sometime next month maybe.

Unfortunately, I can't read what it is. A lot of late Romans are like that, and yet people still manage to attribute them somehow. lol

There is a cross on the reverse which should narrow the emperor down a bit. Several emperors used the cross on the reverse.

If you go to Sphinx Num. go to the search bar and put in mars( was looking for one) these coins come up...Aleppo..

Islamic, Mamluk, al-Ashraf Sha'ban II, 1363-1377, AE fals, Dimashq (Damascus), Eye-shaped cartouche with Arabic al-sultan al-malik al-Ashraf Sha'ban clockwise around perimeter; at center, bin Hasan. / Floreated octolabe with zarb Dimashq at center. Balog 458.

A big thanks to Manzikert at FORVM Ancient Coins for the attribution. I am so glad this coin is attributed now. It is much later than the rest of the lot, 1363-1377 AD.

I sort of disagree with you about cleaning. I think there is a stopping point for decent coins because you don't want them down to bare metal because it lowers the value of the coin, not to mention making them look ugly or really clean. Sometimes a coin looks great naturally. It just depends on the coin. I've cleaned a few and was annoyed when I accidentally removed the patina from the legend or other areas and then metal is showing.

That Islamic coin doesn't need any cleaning at all. If you do clean the sand off, the details will disappear. It's not apparent from the photo but the coin is thicker on one half with decent details and really thin on the other side. The thin side is weakly struck and the details are barely visible.

A lot of the coins I'm still cleaning and soaking. Some of them in distilled water and some in olive oil right now. Some of them I may end up trying to get more aggressive in order to expose more detail for attribution.

And now here is another coin going through the cleaning process.



AE, 1.6g, 11.58mm

Once again I have no clue what this coin is either. Does anyone know?

Well, I'm still having difficulty figuring this coin out. Someone suggested it might be Alexander the Great. A club reverse. No positive ID just yet. I would appreciate it if you guys could give me more ideas. Really would. Thanks!

I flipped the reverse image. That's what's different about this image of the same coin.