First post here..... I'm a newbie in the world of
ancient coins and looking for opinions on whether to view the seller of my first lot of uncleaned
Roman coins with suspicion.
Some background on my story.... I thought it sounded interesting and surprisingly affordable to buy a piece of
history, so I bought some coins for the first time ever from a seller who seemed to have a
good web presence. Before I found this website. 10 from Balkans and 10 from
France. When they came I was underwhelmed at how they appeared at first glance but decided to give it a chance. I have come to learn that this is not a casual hobby. In two days I've gone from toothpicks and DW to a binocular scope and needles, etc...
My first coin came out to be of
Gratian in bronze. I was able to find out all the pertinent info. Great... Its becoming more fun now that I can actually solve a puzzle and learn things.
It was hard to decide which coin to try next as they all look like crap... half missing or nearly smooth or completely encrusted. I choose a completely encrusted as I figure it could hide a whole coin. So I'm picking away for hours. Letters on the
obverse are clearly visible. Figured it would be an easy ID but they don't make sense. I enlisted my daughter to give it an attempt at reading the letters.
Still looks likes gibberish. ....IOS....HVBOREXAA. No dbase returned any hits.
Spent hours today on the
reverse and was ready to give up when right across the middle like a banner I see ....TZER. I'm thinking this is not any Latin I'm aware of.. Keep going and eventually see
KREUTZER. My second ancient
Roman coin turned out to be a 1792 1/4
Kreutzer from
Austria.
So what the heck? How did I get this in my lot and why would something so "young" be totally encrusted? I'm starting to be suspicious and wonder if I was sold a load of junk. That somebody might be taking
his junk coins and purposely encrusting them to give some idiot like me the thrill of cleaning culls. Anyway you look at it, there is no explanation for me getting a
Kreutzer in what should have been ancient
Romans. Did a
Roman soldier time travel 1400 years into the future and then go back before burying
his stash?
To boot, the
Kreutzer was a pain in the neck. Since I switched to the scope, its opened up a whole new world and awareness (of detail...and damage!). I have been comparing crusts to understand what they are made of and how to get them off. For the
Kreutzer, I could see large black crystals on the surface making me wonder if there are tricks for rapidly encrusting coins. It just wouldn't
budge easily.... but what smells fishy is that it
had a crust similar to some of my others
still left.
I want to approach the seller but don't want to accuse him of ripping me off necessarily. At the same time isn't this bad for a seller? That means
his supplier isn't trustworthy or he cant keep
his inventory straight.
Anyone else have a take on this situation?
THanks!