Questions About Buying And Cleaning Coins.

I would recommend V-coins as a good place to buy. All the dealers are reputable and if there is a problem the v-coins support are quite good at resolving any issues.

ebay you might find some better bargains, but you do risk much more... in terms of counterfeit goods or mis-described etc.

Coins that are encrusted might yield some decent rewards, but you need much luck to uncover really beautiful coins that are not common Roman bronzes.

You never really know if the lots have been picked through... only if you are recommended a decent source to buy from...

You can get lucky... but I tried a sample of 20 coins and out of 20 I kept none. None were what I consider good enough for my collection...

You can find silver once in a while in lots which are mostly bronze but there are far more bronze coins floating around than silver (if you are talking Romans...)

Buying encrusted or "unsorted" lots will almost never result in much of value. Usually you end up with a lot of frustration trying to clean them and ending up with corroded junk that is difficult to authenticate.

For the "few dollars" spent on those type of "treasure" hunts you will be happier 99.7% of the time in buying a nice coin with the funds you would put toward uncleaned.

I'll put it this way. If you buy a nice $35-$50 Roman coin that you love, and there are plenty of nice ones available in that price range, you can be sure you would not find that nice of a coin by spending several HUNDRED dollars on uncleaned lots.

Buy what you love right off the bat and you will always be happier because each time you look at those coins you are proud of your collecting accomplishments.

Uncleaned coins are great fun to clean and identify. 99% of the time your lot will cost more than what you'd be able to sell the coins for unless you get an amazing source, but it's a really good way to become familiar with the inscriptions on coins and the portraits. Buy a couple cheap ones showing some detail off of vcoins. They'll almost certainly be something out of the Constantinian dynasty but you'll be able to see if you actually enjoy the act of cleaning them or not.

ebay is a terrible place to buy "uncleaned" coins. "Uncleaned" does not mean "unsearched". People who make a living out of this are usually pretty good at figuring out which coins are likely to clean up well, and which are not. They take the "good ones" and clean them themselves, dumping the rest back onto ebay. By the time you get to them, they've probably already been through and picked over by half a dozen people. A randomly selected lot on ebay is likely to be a bagful of slugs, that will never clean up no matter how skilful you are.

There are a lot of shysters on ebay. Beware of anyone who boasts of glowing "I FOUND GOLD!" testimonials. They did not "find gold", in the sense of there being a gold coin in their lot the seller was unaware of. These sellers are not stupid and know what an actual uncleaned gold coin looks like. What the buyer actually "found" was either a tiny 17th century Indian gold fanam the seller salted into their lot, or a brass coin that "looked like gold" when cleaned up.

It would be far better to buy from a reputable dealer, some of which have been mentioned above by others.


Related to answer 1; some "uncleaned" are actually "cleaned enough to know roughly what they are". If a coin is completely encrusted, it's either because it's obvious what it is even through the crust, or because it's obviously a slug.


Yes. See previous answers.


Of course. Even the best cleaners and spotters can throw away a "slug" that not only actually cleans up rather nicely, but is rather rare and valuable. It's just not very likely.


In ancient times, "the coinage" was not treated as a single monetary system with interchangeable parts, as a modern monetary system is. Copper, silver and gold coins had different purposes and were used by different people for doing different things at different times. Thus, the coin types were usually carried and stored separately and, when lost, were lost separately. Rarely do coin hoards turn up that are mixtures of copper, silver and gold coins. If you find sellers of uncleaned coins selling bags of mixtures of metals, you can be sure they came from numerous different hoards.

Personally, I don't clean uncleaned coins. I know I do not have the necessary patience to do the coins the justice they would deserve. Plus, I'm afraid my knowledge of chemistry, combined with my impatience, would tempt me to experiment with finding chemical "shortcuts" that would end up doing far more damage.

Also, I generally don't like gambling, and buying uncleaned coins is a kind of numismatic lottery. I'd much rather pay a little extra, for a properly cleaned coin for which I already know (or can easily find out) everything about it.