Coin Identification

Thank you for your reply! I am not sure what you mean by the "bust" but it does look very weird in these pictures because of the angle taken and how it looks next to the quarter, the picture does change it quite a bit, and it is a cell phone picture so quality is poor. Any way I can help you identify it? New picture? size?

I agree with echizento's thoughts. It appears to be a fake. Artificially aged with porosity holes from pouring metal into a cast, not hammered as the coin would have been made in them days.

I'm afraid it's never going to look any better than that. There is poor quality metal used in these fakes.

Yep, it's definitely a fake, with a "mule" design: the obverse is of emperor Hadrian, but the reverse was used only on coins of emperor Trajan. Here's one just like it on the FORVM fakes database.

Cleaning it? Sure, why not. You could try pretty much anything. A proprietary brass polish ought to work, but the surface is going to be very rough, so you might try a buffing brush instead.


Even back in the 1970s, selling genuine ancient coins to tourists was illegal in Egypt. Selling "tourist replicas" to them, however, was perfectly legal. This "coin" is a typical tourist copy.