DetectingWales.com

Well, our previously unproductive permission seems to be showing its hand - we dropped by literally for an hour on the way home from the shore and my buddy dug this up - in the same field which produced the Edward III groat.

We haven't had time to do any more than cursory research on it, as we went on from there to court another prospective permission (which was granted . . .  ;))

We think it's Roman but no idea what, so we would be grateful for any information at all, along with any advice on cleaning it.

Thanks in advance

A lovely find Cymro it's he of wall building fame Hadrian, as for cleaning just try wiping it with a cotton bud first and see what will come off after that we get in to spells and potions teritory :D

Well it's a denarius, reverse is PM TR P COS III, Victory advancing right - I can't find the exact type on wildwinds (it'll be in RSC no doubt about it) - apparently dated to ~123AD - when the wall was started :)

my personal preference to clean this one would be to wrap it in kitchen foil, put it in a pot. Cover it will washing soda, and then pour boiling water over it. Leave it for a while - you'll see the water go scummy and bubbles form on the surface (which you can set fire to if you want). Take the coin out, remove foil, clean with either a horsehair brush / very old tooth brush / cellulose sponge. You might need to repeat this a few times, but you should end up with a nice detailed coin by the looks of it.

That's a very nice Roman, well found to you.

Very nice, great detail!

Thanks for all the comments, guys. I had a look on the internet this morning to see what I could find out about it, but the whole Roman thing seems to be a minefield. I'd worked out from the dimensions that it was probably a denarius but I couldn't see one exactly the same; so thanks  to probono and Chef for the ID and cleaning suggestions.

To my eternal shame I ruined a lovely 1855 Napoleon III Dix Centimes I found last week by trying a cleaning method I found online, so I'm a bit more cautious now . . .  ::)

The arrangement seems to be that I collect all the rubbish from the sites and my buddy hoovers up the decent finds . . .  ;) Still, so long as one of us does . . .

Just remember ALL cleaning is destructive to some extent so always start with the most gentle method first and some finds deserve their patina which in many cases gives them their character.
Sorry I didn't know you wanted the inside leg measurement lol your coin has a RIC # 101 (or a variant)
http://www.wildwinds.com/coins/sear5/s3527.html#RIC_0101 (http://www.wildwinds.com/coins/sear5/s3527.html#RIC_0101)

If you use a very fine grade sandpaper, taking your time you can see what hadrian would have looked like without a beard ;D

LOL @ Chef and Nobby  ;)

I usually start with a mill file, about 6 teeth to the inch, then progress through a 120 grit belt on my linisher to a 6" wire brush on the bench grinder.

Is that wrong, then . . . ?

 ;)



 

No that sounds OK to me but maybe a Dremel in place of the bench grinder :-\

No, it would take ages to remove all the detail with a Dremel . . .  ;)

Aside from the jokes (and sometimes emery cloth can work wonders) - the denarius is silver, so unless it is a plated or Zinc variety then my cleaning method is pretty gentle (apparently used by museums).

Most of the stuff on that coin looks like iron-pan -it'll be very ncie under that junk :)

I'm glad you recognised the jokes for what they were. probono  ;)

We can get a good guesstimate of the coin's composition from its weight - we can find its weight and volume, and thence the density of the material so we would know if it was zinc, at least. If it were plated, what would the core be - bronze? Not iron, I'd guess, or it wouldn't be in such good condition after nearly 2000 years.

As suggested, least destructive first.

Great find Cymru,could do with a Roman down here in Pembroke!!
Hey,anyone out there found any Roman coin down this neck of the woods ?
You can tell me exactly where if you like !!!......LOL!!👍

Here you go, dingdong:

"James Phillips, in The History of Pembrokeshire (published 1909), records a find of Roman silver coins in Haverfordwest, the earliest dated coin a Valerian and the latest a Claudius Gothicus."

There's gotta be more . . .

Cheers Cwmry,and thanks for answering my question,so,if I start off detecting at Pembroke castle, which route do you recommend,and do you think the Romans stopped off at MacDonalds at Merlin's bridge or do you think they circumcised the round-bout and marched straight on to the castle in Haverford West...LOL👍

Of course they wouldn't have stopped off at McDonalds - they'd have gone to Richleys for some warm underwear and then to Aldi for their groceries . . .  ;D

Me?

If I was looking for Roman in Pembrokeshire I'd be looking around Neyland. Natural harbour and a safe haven - and there's still enough open land around there to be accessible.

Just my take on things . . .  ;)

Hi Cymro - for my sins I have a degree in Metallurgy :) - when I said Iron pan, I meant on the outside of the coin, not the inside - fouree are usually (but not always) bronze on the inside, but the core will only corrode if there is a break in the plating (which only needs to be a pin hole).

I've cleaned about 20 silver coins this week, and as a roman collector, I come across quite a few 'zinc' / 'limes' coins - I'm pretty sure this one isn't zinc. Of course you could find the density of the coin, but it will be affected by the concretions on the outside (which will effectively lower the density) - I admit that my father tried calculating the density of an Athenian Tetradrachm I have some years ago (and he's a proper chemist) and he got it wrong......I'd probably be able to get a better measure at work, but they don't like silver contamination..........

Anyway, it will be good to see the coin when you have done what you will do to it.

I do know what you meant by 'iron pan' - I looked it up yesterday ;) Just didn't know what the base material would be for plating.

I must take the time to find out how their coins were made - it would be helpful. I realise that it would be difficult to obtain the exact density, but as silver has about one and a half times the density of zinc it *should* be possible to make an educated guess. One which would be discernible even by my wife's Weight Watcher's digital scales . . . Order of magnitude sort of thing.

Thanks again for your guidance; I promise I'll go nowhere near the coin, since I didn't find it. That was my detecting partner, and it will be he who does anything to it - I don't want that responsibility.

I am but the conduit . . .  ;)

I think your pretty safe in taking the coin as being good silver (loads of the stuff in circulation under Hadrian) but if testing Probono doesn't mean the centre would be zinc only that it could be alloyed with it, the Romans didn't have metallic zinc in fact no one did until the medieval but they did use calamine to make brass ;)

Ahhhh . . .

Comprehension dawns . . .  :)

The area I live in is riddled with Roman activity (if not artifacts . . . ) and there was a calamine calcining works less than half a mile from where I sit. Described in the 1700s as being very old.

Who knows?

According to wikipedia there was metallic zinc in India from the 6th century BC, but it also says it was unknown to Europe at this time.

I know that as a by product of lead production you sometimes get pure zinc forming as droplets on the furnace walls.

It's a known thing to call the false, non-silver denarii that seem quite common (one of our members Hammerd found one the other day for instance) 'zinc' - but i confess I don't actually know what they are made from - probably potin would be a good suggestion.

I've found that the plated / non-plated types of coins can be quite close in weight - and without properly calibrated, precise scales (ours in work are to at least 1/1000 g) the error in calculation is great - and that's before you try and work out the volume of the coin.......

Enough already - you win ;D

No,no,no,no,no,cleaning coins,what's all the fuss!!
I put  the coins in,pour in a bucket of sand, shut the door,and put it on longest program on "TUMBLE DRY"
Brings em up a great,well that is if you can find em(ever again)!!!!!LOL😟

Hmmm - doing it on an industrial scale eh . . . ?

(see what I did there . . .?)

I like that, but fear the DW Mafia  :-\

Correction it's not the Mafia it's the DW inquisition you should fear ;)

Not . . . . . . the DW Inquisition . . . . ??

I've heard that any man will confess to heresy after the DW Inquisition has done terrible, unspeakable, things with their pinpointing probes in their deep, dank dungeons.

I've heard that if a man comes out of those dungeons alive, he can never walk the same or sit in comfort again . . .

Please . . . not the . . . DW Inquisition . . . . "gulp"

<<runs and hides . . . >>

NO, thats just what happens to newbies on the 2 day rally, the inqisition is WORSE ??? ???

Cheers buddy,I must get the read,does it give the co- ordinates ?...LOL👍