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Posted 10/28/2015 8:43 pm
I too have broken a coin I owned. Mine, too, was a silver hemiobol, though mine was from Selinus.
I'd taken it out of the flip it came in, to put in a coin club display. I even took a pic of it while it was out, and posted it in this old archived thread at the time. Here's the pic snitched from that thread:
But when I went to put it away again, it broke, more or less where you can see a "hole" already starting to form, over on the left side. So in my case, I suspect the "damage" had mostly been done, and I'd simply put one more straw on the overloaded camel.
And yes, the culprit is silver crystallization, making the coins much more brittle than they "should" be. It's also the reason why you usually can't simply "unbend" a mediaeval silver coin that comes out of the ground all folded and bent. It has to be done slowly and gently, and perhaps with mild heat applied as well, lest the coin snap in two rather than bend.
I don't have an "after" pic; I haven't had the heart to take it out of its flip since the accident. But I did keep all the pieces.
I'd taken it out of the flip it came in, to put in a coin club display. I even took a pic of it while it was out, and posted it in this old archived thread at the time. Here's the pic snitched from that thread:
But when I went to put it away again, it broke, more or less where you can see a "hole" already starting to form, over on the left side. So in my case, I suspect the "damage" had mostly been done, and I'd simply put one more straw on the overloaded camel.
And yes, the culprit is silver crystallization, making the coins much more brittle than they "should" be. It's also the reason why you usually can't simply "unbend" a mediaeval silver coin that comes out of the ground all folded and bent. It has to be done slowly and gently, and perhaps with mild heat applied as well, lest the coin snap in two rather than bend.
I don't have an "after" pic; I haven't had the heart to take it out of its flip since the accident. But I did keep all the pieces.
Don't say "infinitely" when you mean "very"; otherwise, you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite. - C. S. Lewis
