Old Coins

The first two are late Roman coins, the top one looks like Arcadius can't make out the other might be Licinus.

Numbered left to right, top to bottom.

#1: I think echizento nailed it; an AE2 of late Roman emperor Arcadius. Reverse: Emperor standing holding globe and standard, listed in my old Sear as #4131. Like this one on Wildwinds.

#2: no idea. There's not much left of the poor thing.

#3: What the Americans call a "Conder token"; here in Australia they're normally called British trade tokens. This one is a semi-illegal "evasion", of uncertain date and maker. Obverse: Sir Bevois, helmeted; reverse Irish Harp. Listed in the catalogues as Atkins #435 to #438.

#4: Another Roman, this one earlier. On the obverse, I can read (IMP) C M AVR... - best fits are Probus, Carus and Numerian. I'm leaning towards Probus. Reverse is hard to make out, apart from the two figures; either a COCORDIA or IOVI CONSERVAT type.

#5: Netherlands East Indies; I'd guess a cent, from the size. Appears to be badly warped.

#6: Sarawak, as you've already found. Acetone would probably do wonders with that old stickytape debris.

#7: As echizento said, a British half-threepence (or three halfpence, depending on your point of view). Intended for circulation in Ceylon, Jamaica and other colonies, they circulated in Britain as well.

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What are they made from?

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The first one is bronze, the second one is very, very, very dilute silver (something like 1% to 5%).

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Also wondering what does 'AE2' stand for or mean?

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It's the denomination. We don't really know what names these coins were called by the Romans - the historical records from the time are sketchy and ambiguous. So we simply categorize them by size: 1=large, 2=medium, 3=small and 4=tiny. "AE" means "bronze", and is derived from the Latin word for bronze, aes. Similarly, AR is silver and AV is gold.

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Is the symbol 'B' between the two figures on #4 a roman mintmark?

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Sort of. It's an officina mark, used to distinguish which particular branch-mint within the city was responsible for this particular coin. In this case, it's the second officina (B=2). The mint city itself isn't indicated, and can only be deduced from archaeological evidence. The other Roman one (#1) is from a later time, and has a "proper" mintmark (which I neglected to mention earlier): CONS for Constantinople, at the bottom of the reverse.

The Romans were the first to introduce a logical, systematic, empire-wide system of mintmarks, introduced with the monetary reforms of Emperor Diocletian in the late 290's and early 300's AD.

The introductory pages of the Sear catalogues of Roman coins list 24 cities issuing mintmarked coins under this system. This list on a dealer website is much the same. Some mints were only active for a brief time. The ones that were most active tended to be the ones where an emperor was based, or near the imperial frontier. Gotta make sure the legions have ready access to their pay!

I think you could be right about it being scottish. I cleaned it just a little and it looks like it has a scottish lion on the other side.