Hi! I apologize in advance if they is long.
I purchased some coins years ago (2008 or 2009) off [Removed by Admin]. They were very crusty and honestly I knew nothing about them and
still don’t. My oldest son was around kindergarten age at the time. I purchased them because they were
cheap ($ [Removed by Admin] for 2 lots including shipping from Europe to the Us both from the same seller. I don’t recall any other information and my [Removed by Admin] purchase
history doesn’t go back that far. ) My son was collecting state quarters so I thought this would be fun. I did not clean them properly. I want to be upfront that I soaked them in lemon juice and all kinds of random stuff.
In the lot was a small spoked gear. I thought that was odd and figured it was modern. I also found another thing with a peg sticking out that was large and copper with brass back. ( like an unspoken gear/dial). These items were just as crusty and yuck as the coins and only after cleaning did I realize they were not coins.
I spoke to someone who was a modern coin collector in the USA. They “sold” coins as a hobby. I told them about the
Roman coins and the weird items with the coins. They told me I was sold “
fake” coins and that basically I was an idiot for
buying things online. They told me they probably just put modern trash in with the
fakes for
weight.
So I let my son take them for show and tell. We did identify a few coins but I don’t know what happened to those. I don’t remember how we identified them. Basically I gave the best ones to a 5 year old and he lost them. I put all the rest away including the weird items. I moved several times and recently pulled out the
jar of coins.
Since I purchased them, I have become aware of a few ancient machines that did have gears. I believe that they might be REAL parts of an ancient machine. This is not a small amount of coins… They are different sizes, shapes, thicknesses, and a mix of bronze and copper. It would have been a huge amount of
work to produce them as “
fakes”. Also if a person was making
fakes… why would they make many so worn and illegible?
I would like to date these coins. What is the easiest method to do that for a novice. I believe the ones we previously identified ( again in 2009 ish), I just put in the letters we could read on the
side of a coin. I have no idea what website that was. I found one and it requires you to put *** for every letter you don’t know and it didn’t really allow partial searches.
Also some of the coins are so worn they don’t have letters that are readable. I don’t think those will be identifiable.
Can someone point me in the right direction??
Also has anyone else ever found gears or weird stuff?
Thanks!