Attributing badly worn coins?

[Johnedale]

The two coins pictured were from an uncleaned lot I purchased a few weeks ago. They've now cleaned up enough to show just how worn they are, and so I'm wondering what to do with them next. Is it possible to even identify the ruler on coins like this, and if so is it simply a question of having enough experience (and a good enough memory!) to recognise any ruler from their outline?

[areich]

Badly worn coins and blurry pictures are a bad combination.

[yllawwally]

Generically how do people attribute a coin that looks like this coin, or even worse.  I got a coin, it was a cheap 5 dollar coin.  One of my first coins.   It was nearly smooth on both sides. It was attributed as a large bronze greek coin for 3rd century.  But all I see is a fairly smooth smooth surface on both sides.

[Carausius]

Generically how do people attribute a coin that looks like this coin, or even worse.  I got a coin, it was a cheap 5 dollar coin.  One of my first coins.   It was nearly smooth on both sides. It was attributed as a large bronze greek coin for 3rd century.  But all I see is a fairly smooth smooth surface on both sides.

It's often impossible to precisely attribute such a coin, particularly when legends are missing or partially missing.  With experience, relying on portrait style and fabric of the coin, it may be possible to give a general attribution - i.e. Roman Imperial AE As, circa 2nd century AD or Roman Imperial AE Dupondius, circa Flavian era, etc.- but this depends on the degree of remaining devices.  Sometimes, playing with lighting angles can add contrast and highlight very shallow relief to aid in attributing difficult material.

[SC]

Your first coin for example is clearly in the Augustus to Giaus/Caligula era.  The bust, though worn, likely has enough detail to provide a full identification by looking at the images of coins of the emperors of that era on wildwinds.  The fact it is a left facing bust narrows down the options.

In short it is experience that helps.  At first you will have many that are totally unidentifiable or that you can only narrow down to the century.  Leave them at that and don't worry too much.  As time goes on and you read more and see more coins and images your skills develop.  Keep going back to your incompletely identified ones and one day they might just 'click" for you.

I still have coins that have sat unidentified for over ten years but that I think can be IDed one day.

Shawn
 

[Scott H2]

Because I'm fairly new to collecting uncleaned coins I am keeping just about everything I get as part of a reference collection that I have easy reference to. When it comes to coins like these that are so warn to prohibit full attribution, I go a partial method. There are many ways to date the coin: size, portrait, metal, weight, etc. So a number of mine are attributed on the 2x2 as: Roman Imperial 4th cent. AD AE. I have also had a few that are so distinctive that the reverse image was able to lead to almost attribution like the Byzantine 4-5 legend reverse follis coins.