Is it possible that this coin is gold?

[Deleted User]

It's heavy like gold and of gold color although it could be brass but I don't know if they used brass in those days.
Does anyone recognize it?

bronzemat

Nope, it's most likely brass. It's most likely a roman dupondius, which were brass.

291fifth

Antoninus Pius Dupondius. It is brass and has been cleaned.

Sapyx

It's not gold. Gold doesn't turn black like that. Brass does. It also has on it the letters "SC" - this stands for "Senatus Consulto", By Order of the Senate - the Roman Senate controlled base-metal coinage issue, while silver and gold coinage issue was the sole prerogative of the Emperor. So you'll never see "SC" like that on a Roman Imperial gold coin.

To make brass, you need to mix zinc and copper. While the Romans had not discovered zinc as a separate element and metal, they had learned by trial and error that if you tossed calamine (which we now know to be a zinc ore) into the molten metal when you were making bronze, it came out golden-coloured. They called this metal "orichalcum", naming it after the mythical gold-coloured metal which their legends said used to be found on Atlantis.

We know they deliberately made it, and regarded it as being slightly more valuable than bronze, because in the early Imperial period, they made separate coinages of bronze and brass, which were about the same size but the brass coins had higher face value (the bronze "as" was worth half of a brass "dupondius"). It is also confirmed as a dupondius by the emperor wearing a "radiate" crown, a feature only used on double-denominations like the dupondius.

The emperor in question for this coin is Antoninus Pius.

[Deleted User]

Sapyx you know your stuff, very impressive!

asheland

Indeed bronze. The aureus has a specific look.