JRhino

Thanks very much for the explanation, very interesting.

I glued it myself with a tiny bit of cyanoacrylate. The two pieces were found a few metres apart and only at a shallow depth. It was most probably hit by a plough. Not that familiar with all the terminology, when you talk about a die crack what do you mean exactly?

Thanks John, I understand what you are saying. I’m not a coin expert, just a detectorist who enjoys learning as much as possible about the items I find, so thanks for the clarification. Others have suggested that it is likely to be genuine and that sloppy legends and execution are typical of Carausius. Also had this email from Dr Sam Moorhead:

Thanks for the reply. I had an XRF test done on it and it appears to be genuine as it’s made of Silver 91.2%.

Thanks for the reply. I recently took the coin to an auction house to have it valued, they also did an XRF test on it. It came up as 91.2% Silver, 3.2% Copper, 2.4% Iron and 1.6% Lead. According to Dr Sam that would mean it’s an official issue.

Looking a bit better now it’s been glued back together.

Thank you for your comments. I agree, the break may well of been done at the time and be part of the history and interest in the coin. I’m not looking into a full restoration that hides the break.

This is the write up by Dr Sam Moorhead:

Yes, metal detecting. The two pieces were found about 5 metres apart.

I recently found this new type of Carausius denarius. I’m curious to know how much its value has been affected by it being broken in two? Obviously it isn’t worth as much as it would be if whole but it is still unique. It has also been suggested that it may have been a contemporary copy and that the break may have been made deliberately to check for a copper alloy core.