Cleaning 2000 year old coins! Hidden under silt and grime for thousands of years!

How fascinating Alex! When I was a kid on west coast of Vancouver Island we dug a huge hole in our carport. Digging our way to China no doubt? We found a hoard of what we called very strange pennies. Turned out to be Spanish coins dated 1760's The Spaniards had come up the west coast. Surprising how far up from the Alberni canal that the hoard was. This Piqued a lifelong interest in antiquities for me.

hint: when cleaning never us metal on metal, toothpicks work quite well and are a lot kinder to the coin

14:10 this is a Justin II and sophia coin and its from the Byzantine empire between 565 to 578 A.D

The unknown coin is probably an early Byzantine coin - I don't know which one it is. The M, means it's 40 nummi, according to the Greek numbering system. These are also known as follis. The follis was reintroduced as a large bronze coin (40 nummi) in 498, with the coinage reform of Anastasius, which included a series of bronze denominations with their values marked in Greek numerals. Edit: Based on the crosses above their heads, my guess is the two figures are Heraclius and Heraclius Constantine, from 610-641. It's similar to a follis from Nikomedia.

I just came across your channel last week and I have been home all week sick so I have gone all the way back to the beginning. I am up to five years. I love your finds and how your whole family pitched in.

Don't use metal scrapers!!

This is one of my areas of expertise, been cleaning ancients for 20 years and the golden age is gone. Now uncleaned coins are picked over so badly you really do get mostly junk unless you know where a few good sources are. Reall the goal is to preserve the coin with its green/brown/black smooth patina, because the patina has displaced the surface detail in most cases. Your solution stripped the patina leaving not many good coins. The one at 6:58 looks a bit better because it has silver content. Its an Antoninianus of emperor Aurelian. The coin at 8:10 looks like Valens (can't read the legend completely) and is a common late Roman empire type. Stripped of patina its not much more than a curiousity but its got nice detail for the type. 12:28 is a campgate of Constantine I and you can see the mint mark, it was struck at Siscia. Your enigma coins is certainly a Byzantine follis, the two figures on the from could be a number of combinations of rulers, the reverse appears to be way off-centered (not uncommon), the large M is the denomination mark (follis) but it also appears to possibly be overstruck on a predecessor's coin. Not sure. But certainly Byzantine.

I like these types of episodes, seeing these coins is very interesting!

Oh no you have ruined them 😮🙈

No matter what I am watching your channel comes on I watch

How cool!!please do another video to update us with the coin info! Very interesting and cool! Maybe it was from the templar age

What a fascinating project! Thanks for pointing out that you only did this because the coins had no value otherwise. You know to never, ever clean a coin that's worth something.

What a great episode! I've followed you for a few years now, and you're still full of surprises.

Wow. That was interesting. Can’t wait to hear the history.

Use a toothpick for scraping

Excellent history knowledge!

Very interesting Alex. One time I got a Jerusalem coin in Jesus time and I gave to my sister . Love old coins❤😊

I feel sad that you used chemicals on those Roman coins. Distilled water only, I have cleaned hundreds of roman coins, Each one can take up to 4 to 6 hours if you have the patience, Using chemicals causes pitting on the coin and it does not look good, Do it properly & you will be rewarded Love your work.🙂

I love that you work to find new and interesting content to show us. I loved this.

This English guy that mudlarks in England does that same thing he takes total flat ones and puts pencil lead back on the flat coins and it catches on the lost edges and helps see the details for dates and other marks. The graphite dust helps.