This
thread is more than interesting.
Pekka Thanks for that description. I copy and pasted from the link. I want a
Volcano coin now.
On April 13, 1895, excavators working on a
Roman villa near Pompeii unearthed a vaulted box containing a treasure trove of silver vessels and the remains of a leather bag containing more than 1,000 gold
aurei. The intense heat from the volcanic ash,
lava and pyroclastic flows from the eruption of Vesuvius left nearly all of the
gold coins with a distinctive reddish discoloration which has come to be known as "Boscoreale
toning." Most of the silver pieces were later purchased by the Baron Edmond de Rothchild, who donated them to the Louvre in
Paris, where they are
still exhibited. The coins, however, were dispersed to local collectors before any formal records could be compiled. It is known the
hoard consisted of
aurei from the late
Roman Republic and early Empire up to and including AD 79. Although it is usually impossible to tell for certain whether any particular coin was from the Boscoreale
Hoard, the presence of deep reddish
toning on an
aureus dating to before the eruption is regarded as highly suggestive that the coin was from this
hoard, or elsewhere in the region buried by Vesuvius.