JKK

The image is modeled after coins of Alexander, but the legend says "Aleeanaont." Not aware of any historical figure of that name appearing on coins, mainly because I'm pretty sure there aren't any. Obviously, no ancient coin would have the modern name of Greece in the Latin characters. I normally ignore posts that can't be bothered to supply weight and diameter, even if I am pretty sure I know what it is at first look, but in this case--whatever it is, it's not an actual coin. Some sort of token, I reckon, probably worth nothing. It almost brings to mind a modern instance of the blundered legends of the Gallic breakaway emperors, on which it was evident that the diemakers weren't even literate. Those are interesting to collect for the sheer ineptitude of the legends.

Looks like a common, worn eh-cent. No notable premium.

I'd keep it sealed and sell it to someone willing to pay a premium to waste their time on it.

No. It is not even a mediocre example.

No. 1c.

A mule is a creature that refuses to learn and grow, and obstinately continues doing the same thing over and over. I wonder.

I see four coins, not just one. None of the four coins show reverses and none are zoomed and cropped, so there's nothing to talk about yet except that you clearly did not take time to look over the posting guidelines. You have no question, just a statement, so there is nothing to answer.

I'm the heretic here. An obviously modern coin with zero potential to be restored and which will only deteriorate further might as well die as the subject of an experiment that will prove to someone that there's no point in it. It's not like he picked a valuable coin and tried to make it "shinny." It's corroded junk, and people would tell him to spend it for 1c. He got more learning value out of it than that. To me, the reverse surface looks replated anyway. Can't tell about the obverse, but the idea of plating only one side doesn't sound plausible, so I can't explain the obverse. A replated coin could have had rust underneath which then came through the plating (wear or whatever cause). Any way one looks at it, there's nothing anyone could do to give it value--except for a few people, perhaps, none whom would waste their time on it. So I would say never clean a coin that might have a hope of being valuable. As in, never clean it until it's proven that no matter what you do, it won't be worth jack. In that case it might as well be an object lesson. Find an S-VDB with verdigris? Stay the hell off that and send it to the professionals for conservation. Found an 82 cent and certain it's a small date but it's a damaged mess? I don't see the harm, unless such cleaning is a gateway cleaning that leads to much worse ideas.

Very.

I'm of the school that believes there are plenty of dumb questions, as anyone who has spent five minutes on their local BegsDoor should be able to verify. However, yours were not among them. "Novice question" does not mean "dumb question." This forum's very title says that it's for novice "newbie" questions.

A lot of those little shows near me in the Willamette Valley (Oregon); most are run by local clubs and don't have too much use for the scummy sorts of dealers. Commercially run shows (there is one near me that operates quarterly) might not be so picky. Sounds like you at least left him with a bit of a commercial paddling, which is all to the good.

To me, if it's not one of the top three--ANACS, NGC, PCGS--it's what I call a JGS, "Joe's Grading Service." That's in the category of "anyone with a computer and some seed capital can decide he's (few women would be this dishonest, thus he) a grader, and has every reason to tell the submitter what they want to hear. Their slabs mean nothing and should receive no validation. And yeah, this is one of the things that drive new collectors out of the hobby. You got thrown out mainly because he knew that being confronted in public was hurting his scam operation business. Being thrown out for that is a badge of honor. You could probably find him on Yelp, though, and leave him a lasting memory.

I will ask my Sconnie co-worker which cbeers he thinks are the best in Wisconsin.

Beer and brats?

When I want to figure out a grade from MS-60-70, I go to my ANA Grading Standards book. It's pretty thorough. However, if you want to really kill it, there's another way. It'll take years, but so does much learning in the hobby. There's a mag called Coin World that has two things in it I care about: a price guide and a grading article. While the price guide is pretty much high retail, I save them over time and put them in binders. By now I have a handy price history reference as a result. It takes little effort and requires minimal space. But the germane thing here is the grading articles. Every issue includes a guide to grading a specific coin type and grade range, with blown-up color photos just like we ask people to post here, and detailed discussion of why the coin achieved or was relegated to a given grade. So you might see one on IHPs from FA-2 to AU-58, which might have AG-3, G-6, VG-8, F-15, VF-20, EF-45, AU-50, AU-55, and AU-58 examples--and where the author, who was not always the grader (many were slabbed) agrees or disagrees with the grade it got. I keep these articles, sort them by coin type, and also put them in binders. After about five years the mag starts to repeat its coverage, but always with a new take, so I hang onto them. If I want to fuss out a grade, I've got some very expert guidance to supplement what the ANA says. Eleven or twelve years into it, I'm starting to see some triple coverage.

Dealers and some collectors call it tuition. One useful thing to absorb is which coins are most heavily counterfeited. Two main categories: those that circulated heavily in China, and those of high value.

Off hand, it doesn't look Ottoman to me. The typical Ottoman coin had a toughra (sultanic sigil) on the obverse and mostly writing on the reverse. An Ottoman toughra (say TUG-ra but sort of gargle the G; this is an actual letter in the Arabic alphabet, same one everyone screws up in 'Baghdad' and 'Benghazi') looks very much like, how to describe it...like a dancer in a big flowing dress suddenly whirling. It's all writing. I had a glance through Krause 1800s and those Iraqi coins that don't have a toughra have (interestingly) a Star of David, or at least what I would call one. Whether the locals would call it that, then or now, is dubious.

Not an error. Delamination due to serious environmental damage. Even if there were good reason to think it left the mint delaminated, which is not impossible, the rest of the damage indicates that the cladding probably came off in whatever did that. Edges look a bit like a dryer coin.

It's not that the pics are crummy; it's that they are too tiny to get anywhere with. Need to be blown up--then I might be able to tell you something.

Your ancient is probably, from the description, an Umayyad dirham. Perhaps a Sassanian. Both of those are silver and pretty thin. Portland, metro area, is a city of some 3.5 million. I live in the western burbs. If you mean the downtown, it's somewhat lived down to becoming what this country boy always considered it: a zoo, but said country boy just doesn't find downtowns vibrant or exciting or fun. He goes there when he must and gets the hell out as soon as he can. Most of the metro area is fine, but you can find patches of tent cities, garbalanches, and krapp. The Max is a lot worse nowadays; wife rides it to and from downtown daily, and she can see people doing fentanyl right across the aisle. 95% of Portland is the same as it ever was, but a lot of businesses have fled downtown and I can see why. The drug decriminalization simply didn't work, like everything that state, county, and municipal governments do in Oregon. This is the worst governed place I have ever lived in, and I used to live in Boise. The PPB are still throwing a quiet-quit pout over the fact that people actually called them to account for fascist tactics, so that doesn't help. We got a bad national rap because a tiny area of downtown saw nightly tear gas and protest combat, and everyone I knew called me to ask if my street was burning. No, I said, and neither is anywhere else unless you wait until evening to go to the courthouse area and insert yourself between the factions.

"Die marks?" Not only do you have a lot to do in order to stop seeing rudeness when none is offered, but you also could benefit from some better understanding of terminology. If you mean die polishing lines (those are not), then it's fine to say so (provided you know what you're saying). You can say "cleaned" in a sentence all you want, but if you are incorrect, people will correct you. There is no fundamental right not to be called out on errors in description. As for the 49-S Frank that was posted, while I am not a worshipper of grading services, the fact that NGC slabbed it clean as 67+ tells me that whatever those discolorations are, they aren't from cleaning--you're right, at least, on that aspect. What they are, I can't say from the pics, but I agree on what they are not. I'd take that grade and stand pat on it--and I agree with others that this would not benefit from NCS "conservation." (I'm among the cynics about that part. I'm not supposed to be, but I've never been much vulnerable to peer pressure.)

Too bad you aren't near Portland. It often feels like half our presentations are about tokens of some sort, which put me to sleep but are a legit subject and I respect the presenters' efforts enough to stifle my yawns. You'd be in heaven. Would have liked to take a look at your denarius. I could probably have told you whether it was of Tiberius. For measuring microtads, a digital caliper is pretty inexpensive. Just make sure to get one with metric gradations and display, because the coin world speaks metric except when it comes to bullion weights.

Deleted. Never give me the power to ban thread necromancers unless one wants a bunch of people tossed.

I don't think they offer that service, and especially not for that price. I suppose you could hire a professional numismatist, but you aren't getting that service for that price from anyone qualified to do it. The reason we do a lot of things ourselves in this hobby, and learn to do so, is partly because we'd rather buy coins than plastic but partly also because the services don't always exist or would be prohibitive.

I get it--it's hard to keep track of everything, and some of the responses can conflict. But that's why we're doing this: It allows you to get help collecting coins, preserving them, and displaying them. We most of us grew up with Whitman albums, maybe with Dansco slider albums, and in youth we were just filling up the pennies and Jeffs. Then we grew up, got jobs, in some cases took long breaks from the hobby, and returned to it. Our appetites shifted, and we learned that a Whitman album (for example) is fine for circulated cents but not so fine for MS-65 09-VDBs. We adapted. There are archival grade holders for proof and mint sets, if you don't like the mint packaging or if you determine that it's from a time before the mint realized that its packaging would cause harm in the long term. Both fair reasons. But the process of getting the coins from cellophane to holders--with proofs and uncs, that's the rub. So now that we've told you how to do it wrong, here's a way you could do it right. Note that this won't help you album proof or unc coins because doing so is damaging, but it will let you display your stuff in a way you might like. Imagine you've got a proof set in mint cellophane. You should have pliers, scissors, a clean cloth such as a brand new washcloth (I can think of reasons to consider other surfaces, but that's what I've used), a box cutter or small penknife, plastic coin tongs, disposable linen gloves, and if it's easier, what I call leprechaun condoms: fingertip covers that look like dinky little balloons. None of that is expensive. Shop for the type of holder that you find most aesthetically appealing that has the right spaces for the set you want to display. If you want to create an insert, make that before you begin any of this. Open the new holder if necessary. Be gentle. Lay it out on the clean cloth and determine which side is the one you want to be the reverse. Put the linen gloves on. From here on out you will be very, very careful what you touch with those. Lay the set on the cloth and cut away enough of the penny's cellophane that you can get at it with the coin tongs; the reason you are wearing the gloves is what if you drop the coin on the cloth and need to pick it up, or something else occurs that you must guide it more finely? In the middle of the operation is not a good time to have to adjust without proper preparation. Tong the penny out, getting just enough purchase on it to keep hold. Do everything over the cloth, just in case you drop it. It happens. Lay the penny in its holder niche, gently, as close to proper orientation as possible. You would rather not have to nudge-rotate it with the tongs. The coins have an annoying way of landing in the niches ever so slightly out of alignment. Do the same for the nickel, taking all the same care, and for the rest of the coins. You will be preventing them from being touched with human hands, and ideally by not dropping them on the cloth will avoid picking up a fiber. Once you are pleased with the coins' alignment, gazing beautifully up at you from their holder, you can take off the gloves. Lay the holder's other half on top of it, carefully oriented. Most holders sort of snap together with plastic tongues going into slots. You cannot imagine how easy it is to crack these damned things, so be very careful. Gently press them together, hoping for a good tight seal, ideally with just your hands. If it's stubborn, now some fun begins. Triple up the gloves to pad where you will squeeze with the pliers, and very gently attempt to close the connections with light pressure. Periodically look to see where the halves are not quite tightened together and work gently. Take your time, because if you break the clear plastic you will need to live with it or go through all this again with a new holder. If you were gentle and patient, and didn't f-bomb it up (ask me how I learned this), and if the holder was well made, you will eventually have your proof coins in a beautiful display well protected from everything but airborne contaminants. I've never heard of people doing this, but I suppose that a very fine line of adhesive gently pressed into the juncture around 100% of the seam would seal it hermetically if done with precision. Why the knife? In case for whatever reason you find you must pry it back open. It happens. Or you could just leave them in the mint packing until you're psychologically ready to tackle the process. When the time comes, start with a very recent set of the kind that are dirt cheap and even commoner than dirt, the ones that coin dealers can barely give away (they have two dozen from each year of the 1990s sitting in back of the shop) and that everyone's Bampaw thought would be Very Valuable. Most of them can be had for less than five bucks. Practice makes perfect. It helps a lot if you've gone through the ritual once or twice. Like the proper tools, cheap protection/insurance.