![[BEFORE/AFTER] Minted to commemorate the founding of Constantinople.](https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/82127943-3810-4c75-b053-bb31f9caae0e.png){kind=link}
When I first started cleaning Ancient Coins, I bought a bag of “practice coins”. They’re coins in such poor condition that they’re sold in bags by the pound. The vast majority of the coins are almost completely unidentifiable. I spent a year cleaning every coin in that bag (over 100) learning how to clean coins without damaging them. This is the best coin in the entire bag. I find it neat because its a coin made to celebrate the famous city of Constantinople. This particular coin was minted in Thessalonica (Greece). If you don’t know Roman history then you might find it strange to see two kids being suckled by a Wolf but this is a symbol for the city of Rome and the two kids are Romulus and Remus which is from the story of the founding of Rome. On the obverse is Roma the “personification” of Rome. Normally coins of this type have two stars above the wolf, but I only see 1 on this one. I don’t know if I have something special or not but I doubt it. You can much better examples of this coin here RIC VII Thessalonica 187
This is awesome! Thanks for sharing. What types of coins do you typically find in a bag? How did you get started in this?
Wow someone found the community! :-D Welcome. I got started in the hobby when I watched a video on Reddit of a time lapse of someone cleaning an ancient roman coin. I didn’t save it and have yet to find it again despite looking a few times. I was fascinated by it and started reading up on the subject. I didn’t want to start because I was afraid of destroying a piece of history. Then I found the 1/2 lb bag of practice coins that promised guilt free entry into the hobby. 95% of the coins were Roman because they’re apparently very prolific. I did find a coin that was paid to the crusaders. It lacks so much detail i haven’t been able to identify it outside figuring out its from the crusades. There were a few other non-roman coins but not in good enough shape that I was able to figure out what they are, outside of seeing they don’t look like roman coins.