Possible ancient coin? How should I proceed?
 

Hello,

I'm getting ready to move and I decided to take a look at the coins I've accumulated in the last few years, to maybe help w/ the costs of the move but I ran across a coin that has me really thinking twice about bringing it out to the open market.

It is undoubtedly very old with markings around the perimeter in the shapes of little footballs, stars and L's, N's (?), T's.

The obverse is plain except for the striking indent of the other side.

It seems to be mostly copper/bronze..rather light.

It's very thin and could almost cut ya.

It's plain to see that there was once a figure on the front but only traces of it remain.

I'll try and take pics tomorrow in the sunlight but as far as you all being in the coin community what would you do?

Re: Possible ancient coin? How should I proceed?
 

You will need to post pictures of this coin before anyone can hope to advise you. Ancients are not my area of expertise but I'm sure there is someone here that has knowledge of them. If, after posting pics, you would like a few more opinions on this subject i would recommend posting this topic over at Cointalk.org. There are several regulars over there that are very knowledgeable when it comes to Ancient coins.

Re: Possible ancient coin? How should I proceed?
 

These pics are kind of crappy, taken with phone cam, sorry.

http://goldismoney.info/forums/album.php?albumid=14

Re: Possible ancient coin? How should I proceed?
 

Looks like a button.

Dymaxion

Re: Possible ancient coin? How should I proceed?
 

There's no holes in it.

Re: Possible ancient coin? How should I proceed?
 

looks like it may have had a fleur de lys pattern on it. maybe. dont waste too much time on it, its almost basal state smooth

Re: Possible ancient coin? How should I proceed?
 

Thanks Seleukus, yeah it's very smooth. I'll take it with me when I go cash out my odd silver and proof sets, my guy there may know something, if not, oh well. I wish it was as in as good as shape as your avatar, then I might have something.

Re: Possible ancient coin? How should I proceed?
 

FWIW, for good photos of small objects put them on your scanner and cover them with something that's bright white (paper, cardboard, cloth, etc.) Just be careful not to scratch the glass. You can also use a sheet of thin crystal clear plastic to cover the glass.

Re: Possible ancient coin? How should I proceed?
 

It looks to me like a 18th century George 1st Penny, but your's may be a counterfeit version.
http://www.coinsite.com/content/cdan...inFarthing.jpg

In your second pic, you can see the seated lady and her bent arm although the angle of her arm seems to be incorrect. There were a lot of poorly rendered counterfeit George 1st Penny made for export to the colonies, the details were similar to the originals but some were way off however they still circulated as coins because they were good copper and coins were scarce in the colonies. I have a few that are actually quite funny looking, the details can be very bad, one of my coins depicts king George with a huge banana nose. Many of the US colonial era coins used a similar looking seated lady on the obverse, they were often counterfeited as well.
here are some pics of a colonial counterfeits
http://www.predecimal.com/forged/images/halfpenny.jpg
http://gometaldetecting.com/metaldet...half_penny.jpg

Re: Possible ancient coin? How should I proceed?
 

Cool find, not worth any serious brain power to identify though...

Stick it in a church basket on Sunday.

Re: Possible ancient coin? How should I proceed?
 

Well, it's definately not old enough to be considered ancient or even medieval but it's a cool coin nonetheless.