Surface and elemental analysis of 20th century Romanian coins using SEM-EDX technique

Abstract

The cooperation between scientists and numismatics is needed because there is a practical requirement to extract all the information from materials in order to accomplish a complete research. In this paper several Romanian coins from early 20^th century are analysed using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) in order to determine the micro-chemical nature and structure in order to establish the conservation state and manufacturing method. The results indicated that the coins were authentic and for some cases mechanical evidences were presented, suggesting pre-heating before minting. Generally, the metallic samples were relatively well protect against the aggressive external factors but, due to the natural corrosion process, many corrosion products were formed on the metallic surface.