Interesting story with plenty of parallels to our current economy. The Romans kept debasing their currency until it was pretty much worthless. ...not to mention the illegal immigration issue they were dealing with over the Rio Rhine.
A couple years ago, I bought a bunch of uncleaned Roman coins for fun. Cleaning the coins was an adventure. It was really enjoyable to figure out what emperor was on each coin.
They were all supposed to be late bronze coins. Most were, but one turned out to be a silver Diocletian coin. That’s one of my favorite little keepsakes.
Not to belittle your endeavor, but actually cleaning coins totally ruins any numismatic value. Of course, they were where worthless anyway, lol.
BTW, I’ve often thought about trying one of those blobs of uncleaned coins.