how can i tell if my ancient coin collection is gold, silver???

Question

i have about 30 ancient roman and greek coins that were given to me by my grandfather. i have tried to clean them but i have no idea what they are made of. i also have no idea of the value.

Answer 1

You should not have tried to clean them, you may have damaged them even more. Most ancient coins are actually copper. Then comes silver and even dirty should have a silver color. That is if they were made with good silver in the first place. A lot of Roman coins only had a silver wash over a copper core. As for gold that is the rarest and gold won't rust and unless in the sea for a long time, most minerals won't stick to it. If in the sea the crust can be removed and the coin will look like new. I would venture to say, if they need cleaning and are hard to read, they are copper or bronze. You need to find an ancient coin dealer in your area or a coin club. One of it's members must collect ancients.

Answer 2

Before you clean your coins or use some materials that would harm them and decrease their value take them to a coin dealer.

You could also do a little research with reference books from a library. If there is a local coin club someone there might be able to help attribute your coins and give you an idea of their value.

If worse comes to worse go to some websites that have pictures of ancient coins and compare them to what you have.

Answer 3

You can also buy some acids that will test the type of gold, 14c, 18c, 22c, or 24c. If none, then it's not gold. Silver, you can clean it with a silver tarnish remover and see what happens, only tends to work on silver. For value, it's worth as much as someone's willing to pay. Ancient gold tends to be more valuable then currently minted gold. See an auctioneer or a coin collector.

Answer 4

Bring it to a pawn shop, jewelry store or coin collectors. Pawn shops and jewelry stores have gold testing supplies.