Oh, absolutely. The first copper coin is like the great‑grandmother of all currency, a tiny, silent story of metallurgists who mixed copper with a pinch of tin to harden it. The pattern you’re talking about? There’s evidence that the alloy’s composition varied slightly from batch to batch, perhaps because each smith had their own secret recipe or simply because the ore itself had a unique fingerprint. If we could map those subtle differences, we might actually read the artisan’s hand—like a chemical diary. Where do we start? Let’s pull up some ancient metallurgical texts and a few lab reports. Ready to dive in?