Looking at purchasing this coin..

0ronron

It is the first one that I have seen with this kind of toning.. Is it natural or faked???
Thoughts please??
Any help would
be appreciated!!

John Conduitt

It can be natural. Often if the coin was in a hoard. In hand it will probably look darker and a little less colourful.

John Conduitt

This coin has similar colours in certain light.

Rexford

This toning occurred after it was cleaned, so it’s not original.

John Conduitt

@Rexford said:
This toning occurred after it was cleaned, so it’s not original.

True, but it's a Roman coin - they've all been cleaned. So 'natural' means not deliberately made a certain colour. I suspect it was in a hoard, and the bottom half is cleaner because it was stuck underneath another coin while the top half wasn't.

Rexford

@JohnConduitt said:

@Rexford said:
This toning occurred after it was cleaned, so it’s not original.

True, but it's a Roman coin - they've all been cleaned. So 'natural' means not deliberately made a certain colour. I suspect it was in a hoard, and the bottom half is cleaner because it was stuck underneath another coin while the top half wasn't.

While that’s true, the two coins in this thread have been very cleaned/dipped. The way it was situated in the hoard has no effect because the surfaces were stripped after the coin was dug up. The toning occurred on top of that cleaning. While I wouldn’t call the toning artificial, as I don’t believe it was purposefully done, it is a recent development on the coin and is not original to it, since the surfaces are not original, so I wouldn’t call it natural either. I’d just call it “cleaned and retoned.”

John Conduitt

@Rexford said:
the two coins in this thread have been very cleaned/dipped.

Well yes. If you've seen what Roman coins look like when they're dug up, that's undoubtedly so. But I'm not so sure the toning means they were substantially more cleaned than other Roman coins. 'Very cleaned' silver coins are bleached white, and I suspect these had more of the original patina to work with when they retoned.

@Rexford said:
I’d just call it “cleaned and retoned.”

They're definitely cleaned and retoned. But how quickly would a coin take to retone like that from scratch? I would guess it would take quite a while to get to those levels.

I have coins from hoards that I believe have different toning on the same side because of the coins that were on top of them (and the different amount of cleaning therefore needed). Like this one:

Rexford

@JohnConduitt said:

@Rexford said:
the two coins in this thread have been very cleaned/dipped.

Well yes. If you've seen what Roman coins look like when they're dug up, that's undoubtedly so. But I'm not so sure the toning means they were substantially more cleaned than other Roman coins. 'Very cleaned' silver coins are bleached white, and I suspect these had more of the original patina to work with when they retoned.

These look bleached white to me. I don’t see any original patina or surface at all.

@Rexford said:
I’d just call it “cleaned and retoned.”

They're definitely cleaned and retoned. But how quickly would a coin take to retone like that from scratch? I would guess it would take quite a while to get to those levels.

Fairly quickly. I’d wager that coin was last dipped in the past 20 years.

John Conduitt

@Rexford said:
Fairly quickly. I’d wager that coin was last dipped in the past 20 years.

20 years? Would 4 years do it?

Rexford

@JohnConduitt said:

@Rexford said:
Fairly quickly. I’d wager that coin was last dipped in the past 20 years.

20 years? Would 4 years do it?

Sure, depending on how it was stored.

John Conduitt

@Rexford said:
Sure, depending on how it was stored.

Possibly. My coin was found in 2016, sat around uncleaned with the British Museum a while, before being sent back to the owner (seemingly more than a year after it was found, judging by their report). It then went to a dealer, who had it and the other 187 coins professionally cleaned. This photo is from that point. I'm pretty sure they store their coins appropriately. It hasn't toned even slightly more since.

291fifth

The photos appear to be overexposed so it will probably look different in-hand.

markelman1125

Looks like Tiberius, to me it looks really, especially with it having a die clash.