How fascinating Alex! When I was a kid on west coast of Vancouver Island we dug a huge hole in our carport. Digging our way to China no doubt? We found a hoard of what we called very strange pennies. Turned out to be Spanish coins dated 1760's The Spaniards had come up the west coast. Surprising how far up from the Alberni canal that the hoard was. This Piqued a lifelong interest in antiquities for me.

@JeanStAubin-nl9uo

5 ай бұрын

That is so cool!

@christinemarsh4827

5 ай бұрын

What an amazing find! Thank you for sharing. 😊

@rubyrose24881

4 ай бұрын

The straight of Juan de Fuca is called that for a reason...

hint: when cleaning never us metal on metal, toothpicks work quite well and are a lot kinder to the coin

14:10 this is a Justin II and sophia coin and its from the Byzantine empire between 565 to 578 A.D

@frankkelly2245

5 ай бұрын

I dunno. Doesn’t look it. Couple hundred years after the others too.

@jazzjohannes

5 ай бұрын

I agree @eddieboulos6791 , and if you search the coin talk website, there is a whole page full of people submitting their variations and more information around it.

@SwirlingSoul

5 ай бұрын

12 years.. such a short period of history and there it is, a real coin from way back then. I wonder how many coins from us will ever be found.. I mean, we mostly pay digitally now. Cash is getting more rare by the day. Future archeologists might assume we reverted to "no money just trade" or something. Would WE assign our ancestors computer skills and digital money?

@l.m.2404

5 ай бұрын

​@SwirlingSoul I suppose that up to certain decades, pennies will be found everywhere. In middens, dumps, churches, the mysterious horizontal tunnels dotted near historical sites, etc. Of course, in a drought stricken future, future humans have no idea what wishing wells are. 😅😂🤣

@Hannibalian

Ай бұрын

that can't be justin ii, looks to me like an isaurian or later, definitely not before. the art style is very similar to that of leo iii/constantine v-.

The unknown coin is probably an early Byzantine coin - I don't know which one it is. The M, means it's 40 nummi, according to the Greek numbering system. These are also known as follis. The follis was reintroduced as a large bronze coin (40 nummi) in 498, with the coinage reform of Anastasius, which included a series of bronze denominations with their values marked in Greek numerals. Edit: Based on the crosses above their heads, my guess is the two figures are Heraclius and Heraclius Constantine, from 610-641. It's similar to a follis from Nikomedia.

@Snarkapotamus

5 ай бұрын

Constantine was my guess given the crosses...

@cherylross2718

5 ай бұрын

I asked my cousin whom collects ancient coins, before I read your comment. He seems to have the same answer. I'm sure Alex will appreciate this, and run with it.

I just came across your channel last week and I have been home all week sick so I have gone all the way back to the beginning. I am up to five years. I love your finds and how your whole family pitched in.

Don't use metal scrapers!!

This is one of my areas of expertise, been cleaning ancients for 20 years and the golden age is gone. Now uncleaned coins are picked over so badly you really do get mostly junk unless you know where a few good sources are. Reall the goal is to preserve the coin with its green/brown/black smooth patina, because the patina has displaced the surface detail in most cases. Your solution stripped the patina leaving not many good coins. The one at 6:58 looks a bit better because it has silver content. Its an Antoninianus of emperor Aurelian. The coin at 8:10 looks like Valens (can't read the legend completely) and is a common late Roman empire type. Stripped of patina its not much more than a curiousity but its got nice detail for the type. 12:28 is a campgate of Constantine I and you can see the mint mark, it was struck at Siscia. Your enigma coins is certainly a Byzantine follis, the two figures on the from could be a number of combinations of rulers, the reverse appears to be way off-centered (not uncommon), the large M is the denomination mark (follis) but it also appears to possibly be overstruck on a predecessor's coin. Not sure. But certainly Byzantine.

@kit6041

5 ай бұрын

I'm glad you said this, I saw this video and was cringing when I started to see raw copper.

@poephila

5 ай бұрын

Honest question (I don’t know much on this topic!): why is some amount of patina desirable and increases the value of the coin? Presumably all coins in their new condition wouldn’t have had any, so I’m curious to know!

@scotmhead

5 ай бұрын

@@poephila It is because the patina has displaced the originl surface, the detail is usually preserved in the patina. Take the patina off and you remove some or all of the design on the coin and are left with a rough surface, or a lunar-like pitted slug. It is sometimes not the case, occasionally you get a decent coin when you remove the patina, but it is garish and gaudy as bare metal, so most who do remove the patina darken the coin with a false patina, which should always be disclosed if you sell the coin. These bronzes were usually silver washed and appeared silver in color, not bronze, so its impossible to re-silver them, so we generally preserve the patina. There is a great beauty in a nice, smooth, glossy, emerald green patina.

@poephila

5 ай бұрын

@scotmhead That is so interesting! Thank you so much for the explanation. You did mention the loss of details in your first comment but I understand better now. I also had no idea about silver washing, it's fascinating. I know a little bit more today!

@DavidCooper71

5 ай бұрын

What solution do you use to preserve old coins? @@scotmhead

I like these types of episodes, seeing these coins is very interesting!

No matter what I am watching your channel comes on I watch

Oh no you have ruined them 😮🙈

How cool!!please do another video to update us with the coin info! Very interesting and cool! Maybe it was from the templar age

What a fascinating project! Thanks for pointing out that you only did this because the coins had no value otherwise. You know to never, ever clean a coin that's worth something.

What a great episode! I've followed you for a few years now, and you're still full of surprises.

Wow. That was interesting. Can’t wait to hear the history.

Use a toothpick for scraping

@gioiacasterline4835

5 ай бұрын

Love old coins so amazing

Excellent history knowledge!

Very interesting Alex. One time I got a Jerusalem coin in Jesus time and I gave to my sister . Love old coins❤😊

I feel sad that you used chemicals on those Roman coins. Distilled water only, I have cleaned hundreds of roman coins, Each one can take up to 4 to 6 hours if you have the patience, Using chemicals causes pitting on the coin and it does not look good, Do it properly & you will be rewarded Love your work.🙂

I love that you work to find new and interesting content to show us. I loved this.

This English guy that mudlarks in England does that same thing he takes total flat ones and puts pencil lead back on the flat coins and it catches on the lost edges and helps see the details for dates and other marks. The graphite dust helps.

Interesting post. Thanks for including us

Thanks Alex!

Cool coins Alex!! Nice bit of history there.

What a fun treasure hunt!

Very Interesting!

The pellet with the poison's in the vessel with the pestle; the chalice from the palace has the brew that is true! Right? But wait! There's been a change! The pellet with the poison's in the flagon with the dragon! The vessel with the pestle has the brew that is true!

I too love holding something someone in the past held. Excellent video ❤

Great episode.

Those coins are gorgeous!!!!

Very interesting, I love this kind of history!

15:00 I noticed you occasionally turning this coin to the reverse and then rolling it (to see which way is right side up). If it's a coin, the reverse would flip top over bottom to remain properly viewable. If it's a token, turn it side to side for the coin to remain properly viewable.

@spud4242

5 ай бұрын

maybe on US coins but not all nations past or present do it the same way as the us. in fact current AUSTRALIAN coins need to be rotated left to right.

@user-zk4wu9ss7d

5 ай бұрын

@@spud4242 Correction accepted. Thank you.

Those are awesome, thank you for sharing ❤

Totally enjoyable video!

Alexander, That looked like fun, tedious but fun:) Cheers, Rik Spector

This was fascinating!

I have a bunch of ancient Roman coins too, so I'm anxious to see what happens!!!

These look mostly as metal detector finds, and by just looking at them in their rougher shape, they are late Roman and early Byzantine coins.

Fascinating! I’m a history geek.😊

I wonder if you used an ultrasonic cleaner with your solution

@michaelmathews295

5 ай бұрын

It would work well with cleaning all the jewelry that you pick up. I have one for cleaning carburetors on motorcycles.

Amazing video...i know nothing about coinsbut throughly enjoyed and the time period is amazing ....🥰🥰

Fascinating thanks for sharing ❤

So fascinating to me- such history 😮

It's like traveling back in time

Very cool Alex 😎

So interesting. Thanks!

Fun to Watch the process! And how Nice the Crud preserved Them💯 Did you rinse of in water to stop the process??😁

Interesting, thanks for sharing.

You need a magnifying glass to see the coins

COOL!!! Do take care. Fl., USA

Ouch! You dont depatinate ancient coins like this! 😭

That cleaning stuff was fantastic

The coins are awesome.......imagine Roman history coming alive to tell stories thanks to Alex! Alex, mudlarkers in England use a solution with electric wire and they come out almost totally clean. Just a thought.

@janvafa9959

5 ай бұрын

Electrolysis… fun science project!

I did enjoy this .

Fascinating stuff.

This is so interesting for me

About 35 years ago at Birks Jewelers store, they brought in sunken treaure from an old ship. You could view these gold coins or buy one, which was very expensive back then

@christinemarsh4827

5 ай бұрын

Fascinating!

@laraemitchell9064

4 ай бұрын

Sounds like about the right time frame for when the treasures from the shipwreck “Atocha” were on display. I saw a similar display at a jewelry store in Boise. Incredible Spanish treasure. Gold, silver, coins, emeralds. Amazing things that were on the Atocha, sunk in a storm in the Caribbean in 1622 and found after years of searching by the Fisher family.

Hello Everyone, I watch a mudlarking group that might have a idea what coin that is, Si-Finds And Nicola White are a group of people who collect from the River Thames and several other places. They might have a clue. Chill Bill, Nugget Noggin are also enthusiastic about coins. British Museum of Artifacts, (is a good guess on the title there), might have a clue too. Very historically accurate attempt by the whole group. Really enjoyed the video. And I will be glad to watch again.

@ruthie600

2 ай бұрын

love watching Nicola White and Si-finds!

This is very interesting

Really cool!

Interesting, leaves a lot of questions.

Years ago I bought one of these lots. So many of the coins were broken or very tiny. I think your coins are nicer. I didn't know about the cleaning solution.

It looked like one of the coins was clipped - this was done at one time when coins were actually made of precious metals and people took clippings This was stopped as the coins were potentially getting devalued and the use of base metals introduced

@laurigardner6227

5 ай бұрын

Shaving coins was common up until the late middle ages, which is why weight was a more common way to measure the worth of coinage. As the Roman Empire began to suffer from inflation, commodity currency became fiat currency, which lead to the devaluation of the metal content in the money. Clipping was used to check the metal content inside a coin, and also to round out a transaction, which is why smaller coins would be clipped. Going back to shaving of coins for their metal content, people who did this illegal practice in the late middle ages were known as chiselers, which is where we get the word chiseler for a penny-pinching miser.

The coins look in better shape than some currently in circulation.

This was absolutely amazing. I watched it when you found them but I don't know but I finished it because I live in a nursing sometime and I had to stop because they need me to do something.😊

Find them quite often in the uk metal detecting.

How fascinating!

I too enjoyed this.

By the way Si-Finds had a video he used a Silicone nib pen to remove more residue with. Fun one to watch. You might like it too.

The portcullis you showed on some of the coins was still on British three penny bits until they went out of mint in the 1960s!

Awesome

🙋‍♀️❤️. Be careful! Coins are addicting! ❤️❤️❤️

You did very well young man. Perhaps using toothpicks for cleaning would be process you develop, for the restoration of the coins. Nevertheless, they are your coins now. It was a great find. Well done!

You know your product better than I do, but I am surprised that you never replaced the old murky stuff with a new bath. Also, if you have the patience for it, you might want to try gently bouncing a medium to soft straight bristle brush on the coins while they are in the bath.

wow!!! so amazing

Very interesting....❤

It is probably Theodosious and Justina. He was the last Byzantine Emperor to rule over a sort of unified Empire. His wife Justina was a co-ruler who helped keep him in power during the nucca riots.

@caladonia68

5 ай бұрын

BTW this is Alex and Amanda from Leavenworth.

Hey Alex would electrolysis work? You can make a small tank pretty easy with an old battery charger.

Interesting project but please use a toothbrush or bamboo skewers instead of metal for picking at the coins.

You might want to get one of those cell phone microscopes that you can attach over your phone camera. You can get some pretty good pictures using that. Plus it's fun to mess around with. ☺️

The unidentified coin looks very similar to a gold coin with Leo IV The Khazar and Constantine VI from 778 AD I found on Thomas Numismatics.

It’s the age-old argument between leaving the age patina on the coin or removing the dirt and polishing it up. You have many numismatists (coin experts?) leaving comments. They are the experts. Interesting vid.

Just started watching, if it doesn’t work I bet you know an artist who could use them!

Ave! Salvete et Salutationes Alexius Maximus....!

16:00 I see you have the Pyrex Starburst on display.🇨🇦

Fun haul to check one by one’s.. left over can be for art, craft, display… to be reuse in a nice way! Do not discard

How about putting the rough one in a fresh batch of the rust remover and they may be better

By accident I discovered a nice cleaner/polish for copper and silver, Mrs Meyers Clean Day Cream Cleaner with a soft toothbrush. It's a baking soda formula, works great on my copper and silver jewelry and pennies to remove light patina/tarnish and restore shine. I haven't tried it on really heavy copper patina but it worked well on a piece of blackened silver.

@corricatt

5 ай бұрын

excellent advice!!!

the unknown coin looks byzantinic

OMG! You are going to clean the coins?! I hope it’s with nothing more than a brush and some water.

I looked online. Is it possible the coin you were wondering about is a Heraclius 613 ad Byzantine hexagram coin?

awesome hobby

Can you tell me where you purchased the coins from?

(7:00) thats a fine coin!

It just amazes me to imagine who once held those coins in their hands. Just a person. Maybe even a Dad. But would you think they could have thought when holding it, who one day, would hold it again? I hope you get some info on these Alex. Just really fascinating. ✌🏻🤍

Real interesting to watch. I know cleaning old coins is usually a huge no no. But like these being just not identifiable junk I'm sure you cannot go backwards. For people like me who aren't as worried about investment value and just fascinated in holding something close to 2000 years old is very cool. If you are actually to get your money back would be super interested. To hold a coin that could have been in circulation while Jesus walked to earth would be super interesting to me. The opportunity to see something that he could have seen. Not the exact coin but just the image. Really cool.

@scotmhead

5 ай бұрын

Cleaning is almost always necessary for ancient coins, except for gold coins they will all have need for conserving. Especially bronze coins, the goal there is to gently remove the dirt and mineralization slowly over time (sometimes days, sometimes it takes months or years) to reveal the coin with its patina intact. Its an enjoyable hobby but the coins available to conserve these days are typically not very interesting coins, just late Roman bronzes of which there are millions upon millions.

On the junky ones there is no real harm in using a 9v or 12v wallwart / phone charger to perform electrolytic cleaning on them. I used to do it often. Just put the negative lead alligator clipped on the coin and the positive lead on a sacrificial metal object like old junk spoon or maybe a carbon rod if you have one. Leave them sitting in a cup of salt water, perhaps one tablespoon salt per cup. The coin will fizz with bubbles like alka seltzer and after ten minutes the crud just falls right off. Use more salt if you don't see fizzing start. Don't breath the vapors and wear gloves because of hydrogen gas and chromium being released. Pull the coin out every ten minutes and scrub with a plastic brush on a piece of wood in the sink. It will make a mess. Repeat the fizzy process a few times per coin to see what you have. After that I would throw them in a vibratory tumbler with (dry) black walnut shell grit for a few days. It really scrubs them and can create a more natural looking surface / glossy patina. Walnut shell grit is sold for cleaning brass shells for people who do reloading of ammo. Don't use the electrolytic procedure on silver plated coins because it will remove whatever remains of the silver.

I wonder if you could get some of the persistent crusting off by heating the coins and dropping them in cold water. Thermal shock the crap off :D

@crunchyfrog555

5 ай бұрын

Not a bad idea na dprobably worth experimenting with. I might give it a go myself. Of course you'd have to be careful, but it could indeed help.

@michaelripley4528

5 ай бұрын

Not to much heat though🤷🏼‍♂️ Could be a funny experiment finding the balance… If the metal does not getting a blueing… Cooper reacts very fast on heat, and that blueing Can be hard to remove without hard polish🤷🏼‍♂️ Like his result though coin people might go🤯VANDALISM🤣 Most important is to rinse of with water to stop the process after that chem removal

Alex a sonic watch parts cleaning bath would have cleaned those coins and less risk if damage to the surface

I would love to have one of the older coins pre Christian era. It would make a great gift for a history scholar

14:10 Possibly St. Constantine and St. Helen.