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What type of Roman coins can I expect to get?Uncleaned Roman coins are a good way for the beginning ancient coin collector to become familiar with ancient coins. They are also a great gift for the young coin collector in the family, they can hold ancient history in the palm of their hand. Removing the layers of dirt deposited over the course of history can be like discovering buried treasure, you can uncover common Roman coins as well as occasionally a rare or scarce Roman coin. The majority of the uncleaned coins will be Roman; however, a small amount may turn out to be Greek, Byzantine, or Islamic. The coins will be mainly bronze, copper, and brass, sometimes a silver coin can be found, but please do not expect any gold coins. The presence of gold coins in uncleaned coin lots is a myth perpetuated by unscrupulous coin dealers. When the coins are excavated any gold coins are removed by the diggers, anything they may have missed would be removed by the dealer in Europe that gathers the coins from the diggers. Even then the occurrence of gold coins in coins being excavated is not common. If a dealer claims people are finding gold coins amongst his uncleaned coins it is actually one of three things that is happening - people are mistaking bright over cleaned coins that have been planted by the unscrupulous dealer, or due to it's yellowish color, they are mistaking coins made of orichalcum for gold coins, or they are finding very inexpensive gold coins that have been planted by the dealer (maybe one in 5000 coins), these planted gold coins are often gold fanams from India, these are very inexpensive coins, worth less than $20.00 in most cases, and they have nothing to do with ancient Roman coins. The Roman coins you will receive for cleaning can range in size from about half the size of a U.S. dime to the size of a U.S. quarter, and occasionally larger. The majority are approximately the size of a U.S. dime to the size of a U.S. nickel. The ages of the coins you may receive can be from 300 - 200 B.C. (in the case of Greek coins which may be in amongst the Roman coins) to 9th to 12th century A.D. (in the case of Byzantine coins). The majority of the coins will be Roman coins from the 3rd through the 5th centuries.
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