JKK

How much do they want for them? I have many customers paying me Big Bucks for such coins, but my back hurts from bending over to pound them together with a hammer.

That's wonderful, Kurt. When NGC starts a a forum for the grading of body parts and other metallic non-coin goods, there will be absolutely no shame in referring to those as "stamped."

Here's another that seems necessary: Please do not refer to coins as being "stamped" (unless you mean a countermark or counterstamp; if you know what those are, you know the difference) or "printed." When you use those terms, you sound ignorant. Even if you in fact are ignorant, ignorance is to be cured rather than embraced. Coins are "struck" or "minted."

Not for sports cards, though?

*spoon*. Wasn't supposed to say anything. Now I've done gone and *spoon*ed it up.

Word. If I have a time constraint by which it's legitimate to nag me to hurry up and reply, then I want a pay raise to go with it.

Young Hank also sent me a very nice thank-you card like the one previously pictured. One suspects Hank's parents are deeply involved in his growth and hobbies, as is right and proper, and are most pleased with his development.

If it were me, I would be looking through Wildwinds Thessalonika AE3s for one with a bust showing as much cuirass as yours. That may even end up telling you the oficina, which would be a big help, and I think would probably nail down the obverse legend. You're on the right track, though. I think the obverse legend guess is plausible and that the reverse is a lock because it is so associated with this common reverse type.

Okay. BORTE: bust, obverse legend, reverse legend, (reverse) type, exergue. What we think we can see and have gleaned so far: High likelihood of Constantius II, AE3. If so, that trims it down to about 900 possibilities. Using Aorta: B: 10: diademed (pearls) bust right, draped, cuirassed. O: 2-10: CONSTANTIVS _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ (give or take a character, and bearing in mind that PF AVG is a very likely ending but by no means the only possibility) R: ? wholly illegible; will have to be inferred from reverse type associations T: 101: (looks like) Soldiers standing on either side of two standards, each holding spear, resting hand on shield E: 16: _ MT _ (Thessalonika is the only reasonable possibility) We learn that all the B10s have O19: DN CONSTANTIVS PF AVG, or O25 (even further divorced from what we see). That's a big problem. There is simply no good reason to imagine we're missing a DN before the emperor's name; it makes me at least wonder if we should in fact look at Constantine (the IVS easily could be VNS). So we take what we know and surmise, and check into Constantine II. He struck an AE3: B: 7 (he has only about twelve of these, yay) O: 3-13 (all those are 7, CONSTANTINVS IVN NOB C) R: 27? Going by association with T73, GLORIA EXERCITVS passes the logic test (soldiers pictured) and the association test (found on many issues together), so I'll believe that provisionally, and yes, it matches with B7 and O7 T: 73 (yep, fits) E: 14 Major drag, because the ten reasonable matches are all SMK_ or dot SMK_ (E06; Cyzicus). The very clearest letter in your exergue is the T, and there's no way it's a screwed up K. We still haven't identified it, mainly because we aren't 100% sure which emperor, but we can try some possible descriptors as working guesses: B: diademed (pearls) draped, cuirassed bust right O: CONSTANTINVS (IVN NOB C?) R: GLORIA EXERCITVS T: Two solders standing on either side of two standards, each holding spear, hands on shields E: _ MT _ , which just about has to be Thessalonika If you dig through the emperors from Constantine I--I would start with his AE3 folles post-317 CE--limiting it to those where the obverse legend could include one of the CONSTANTI____ variants, matching the reverse type and legend, and seeking only Thessalonika examples, you should be able to get this down to a question of which oficina made this. Your key tell is on the bust: the cuirass detail on your coin is really quite nice. The image must match that amount of cuirass showing and its style. Good hunting.

Doesn't match. Look at the cuirass on the original--doesn't resemble this one.

I figured the response to anything I'd said started where you used my initials, my oversight.

That head does not match the OP's coin. For one thing, the OP's coin has the pearl diademed (looks like draped, cuirassed) bust right. For another, he says his weighs at most half what the coin pictured here weighs. I'll see if I can devote some time to looking it up.

And it's a good place to have posed that question. I think it is very unlikely they are real. I find it surprising someone would offer you that for them. However, if you want to be sure, just spend the money to have them graded bodybagged and sent back "not genuine." If they come back genuine, you'll have beaten the odds. But I really would do the magnet thing first.

The advice is good. Run them over a magnet. If you send them in, you'll spend $100-200 just to find out you have fakes or altered real coins. To be frank, if you were to insist upon sending them in, the grading cost would amount to an unwisdom tax.

I get that the flatness can be attributable to strike weakness. It's right at the center of the design. What I don't get is how there are even rims if the strike is that weak. I've seen rimless Peaces that had fuller central device detail than these. I realize it's just possible that professional graders who do this every day might know more than I do, but really I'm just seeking to understand: how do we even get a rim with that much central device detail missing?

If it's too much trouble for you to Google the basic information, OP, I get it. Why should you be bothered when Helpful Forum People will cheerfully search out the basic public domain facts for you? As for doubling, you post thread after thread about this or that modern coin, receive patient answer after patient answer, yet none of what you are told ever seems to educate you. My question for you is why do you not absorb any of this education? After dozens and dozens of posts and responses, is it really too much to ask for you to develop a concept of what constitutes an error and what is just damage or imaginary? It's a serious question. I have stayed away this long, but it's about time someone posed it.

If the supposed 65+ were a weak strike, the rims would also not have struck up. I have lightly worn Peaces with no rims, just slight bevels between the milling and surface; terrible strikes were common in certain issues. Put bluntly, I think that 65+ grade is *spoon*ed up. That doesn't look like strike weakness to me around her earlocks; that looks like wear. I'd probably call that an F-VF obverse and I certainly wouldn't pay better than F money for it. And that's giving zero consideration to the tarnish, except to note that: if it's uncirculated, how come the tarnish remains stronger in some of the protected areas?

Need weight and diameter.

All looks rather familiar.

Looks like simple damage to me.

Stain.

The wiseacre answer to how one can tell is "a new member posted it here." No offense; we see several per week, more so recently. The more thoughtful answer is "compare it with known authentic ones." Look for those online, easy to find.

There are a few variants of that issue. I don't know enough about them to say if it might be one, but based on what I can tell, I doubt it. Has nice detail but the edge dings would likely limit it to VF. If you're asking what it would sell for, probably $5-7.

Hard to tell from the uncropped photo whether it has a MM or not, but the W is not a mint mark. The MM on a Merc is at bottom left of the reverse. It's nothing special from a value standpoint, but finding a Mercury dime is always cool.

That's $50 too much and an illegal act by the seller. I suspect that if you called the seller and asked for your money back, presenting as an alternative that you might make your next call to the Treasury Department, I wonder if you might get a very quick refund.