A few days ago something reminded me of some ancient coins I bought on Ebay maybe 10 years or so ago. Sold cheap (maybe $2 to $5 per coin) uncleaned and unidentified. I cleaned them the best I could by soaking them in olive oil and using a copper wire brush on them (as was the recommended method.) I’ve been lurking here, and thought that this would be as good a place as any to ask if anyone can identify any of them (and making this my first post after lurking for a while.)
This is a scan I did of both sides of the coins on my flatbed scanner, way back when. I realize that some of these coins are beyond identification–but I’m sure that some of them will be instantly recognizable if they fall under the right eyes.
There are over 12000 members at the Coins subreddit.
I’ll bet they figure it out within a couple hours.
You may consider uploading to Imgur, the de facto standard over there.
Well, they’re definitely Roman, 4th / 5th century AD. Constantinian, Valentinian, Theodosian and/or thereabouts. At least for the ones where I can tell.
The guy in the bottom right corner looks a whole lot like Valentinian III. Is number two from the left on the top row Constantius II? Then again, he might be a Valentinian, like Valens or Gratian. All those dudes sure look similar, don’t they?
That’s all I’ve got right now (IANACoin expert). 
What idiot recommended that!! :eek:
Presumably none of them have any great value. Otherwise, you pretty much ruined them with the wire brush.
Actually, on low value roman copper in poor condition, this is OK.
They were ruined before he went to work on them. The elements had corroded them almost to oblivion. He actually made them more recognizable and therefore more valuable. Low value of course.
You can start with this page: http://www.romancoin.info/
