Possible silver?

[Coin Seeker]

Hello all! I'm still fairly new here and I think this is my 3rd post to the site. Me and my step daughter are still newbies at ancient coin collecting and we came across this coin in a batch we ordered. It's not completely clean but we noticed after our last soaking in DW and brushing that it could possibly be silver or maybe lead (I haven't read to much of ancient coins being made of lead though. I also notice a brown (rust colored) growth along the sides of the coin. Can anyone shed any light on whether this could be possibly silver or something else? Thanks in advance and we're so glad we found a community with like minds like ours!

weignt 3.5g

length 13.4mm (not sure but I measured it at its widest part)

thickness 4.43mm

Oliver

[Manzikert]

Hi

Almost certainly a lead seal, and what looks like a 'B' seems very uniform in width suggests it is not very old.

I have seen very similar seals used to secure the front panels of gas and electricity meters and the rust is probably from the iron wire which will have fastened the panel or whatever.

Best wishes

Alan

[Coin Seeker]

So your telling me this is far from being anything ancient from Roman, Greek or Byzantine? I got this batch from www.crustyromans.com

[Manzikert]

Hi

Yes, I think it is quite modern, but as the 'hoards' they show look more like accumulations of surface and single detector finds than classic hoards of coins current at a particular time and place buried as savings or to protect them from marauding invaders I am not surprised that the odd modern item might get into any particular lot.

For instance the right hand image they show for 'Silver coins and items' in the cleaned section contains both those and late Roman material as well, stuff dating from the third century to the 1700's at least which you would never find in a single 'hoard'.

Best wishes

Alan

[Robert_Brenchley]

Don't handle coins with metal tweezers, you can scratch them. Use fingers or plastic.

[Coin Seeker]

Thanks Robert, but I don't? I just used them to help hold up the coin. I took these at work lol!

[areich]

Tweezers with rubber tips are available as philatelic supplies. Not necessary to handle your coins but if you're going to use tweezers, they're preferable. Especially with lead.