Richard II

[craigy]

have been out quite a bit thru the hot times and managed a few hammered, nothing special, this one is rather interesting,  i think it's a Richard II London half penny, looks almost like its plated, or is it seriously debased, doesn't look like a fake or a Johhny foreigner, the legends look correct, any thoughts welcome , its not been cleaned with anything, just distilled water 

 

 

Edited August 28, 2018 by craigy

[Coinery]

I have been in this position many times, thinking that the exposed ‘black’ layer is revealing a different metal to the clearly silvered surface ‘micro-layer!’

my thoughts are...I have seen many similar examples from the ground (namely, looking this way), which leads me to firstly conclude they are not modern copies. Equally, if they were contemporary copies I long since rationalised that the material beneath a ‘silvered’ copy would not remain black after 100’s of years, they would have given up the truth of their base metal materials by now, as all base metal coins have.

So, my unsubstantiated theory is...the process of mixing silver for blank flans in that period was far from perfect, and was fraught with contaminated ‘mixes’ that left layers within the silver that manifested itself eventually as we see your coin here today, and many others too!

100% straight coin for me 👍

[craigy]

you know the more i look at it in the flesh it looks a gold color, to bright for silver  i'm starting to think it was gilt at some point,   i know it looks silver in the picture but having handled 100's of hammered in all states and cleaned and as found i've never seen a silver like that , i could even go as far as saying it looks goldy coloured in the pics above 

Edited August 30, 2018 by craigy