"Improving" your coins

This is an example of the kind of topic that gets me in trouble here
g, a controversial topic, but yet one that I find interesting and
compelling, one worthy of thinking about and writing about: cleaning
coins.

Attitudes among collectors are much different from attitudes among
dealers, and attitutes among collectors of U.S. coins are much
different from attitudes among collectors of ancient coins. Some
people are puritanical. "Never clean a coin," they shout, over and
over. You understand the reason for their overreaction: many coins in
the past have been damaged by harsh cleaning.

Yet dealers, some of them, perhaps many of them, routinely clean
(conserve, curate) coins, and there's a service out there, NCS, that
does this, and dipping is a form of cleaning, as is soaking on soappy
water, as is using acetone. Etc. Virtually all ancient coins are
cleaned, and typically harshly, using brass brushes, dental tools, and
chemicals, for the obvious reason that many come into collectors'
hands from having been buried in the ground for 2,000 years, give or
take, and are deeply encrustated with dirt, organic matter, and so on.

I'm in the process now of "improving" some of my ancient coins. I've
done this a bit in the past, not much, making some mistakes along the
way, trying to read as much as I can about what others have done to
avoid making more. Until yesterday I hadn't done any of this for a
while -- scared. g I haven't ruined any expensive coins, yet, but I
came close in the past with one, so I've avoided until now
experimenting with this further. But as we speak I'm soaking one very
cool coin in white wine vinegar to improve it. Here's a picture of it,
pre-cleaning:

http://rg.cointalk.org/misc/emergency_owl.html

It's an "Emergency Issue" Athenian Owl tetradrachm, a coin issued by
Athens c. 405-404 BC during the final stages of the Peloponnesian War,
which Athens lost to Sparta. It's a silver-plated bronze coin, a
fouree. Fourees are tyipcally ancient counterfeits, but this coin is
an official issue, issued because Sparta had cut off Athens' silver
supplies, and the Athenians were desperate. It matches the official
Emergency Issues in Sear (2535) and Svoronos (pl. 15, no. 13), with an
Athena on the obverse sporting a frontal eye whose opened inner corner
is beginning to transition to a fourth-century profile eye.

Another very cool thing about this particular speimen is that it looks
as if it just came from the ground. It's black. Nobody, yet, has tried
to clean it, from all appearances. So what I'm doing is soaking it for
two hours at a time in vinegar, a mild acid, then using as soft tooth
brush and dishwashing detergent to brush off the black toning/patina
to improve the coin's eye appeal. Soak-brush, soak-brush, ...

There's risk involved. Vinegar, like any acid, can pit the coin. If I
soak too long or brush too hard, I can scrape off part of the silver
plating, though this isn't necessarily negative with fourees unless
it's too extensive. I'm using vinegar and not lemon juice because it's
slightly more acidic, but it's riskier too because of this. We'll see.
So far the coin is looking better -- slightly more silver poking
through, particularly on the obverse. I'll post a pic when I'm done.

Fun stuff...

--

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Coin Collecting: Consumer Protection Guide:
http://rg.ancients.info/guide
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Bogos: Counterfeit Coins: http://rg.ancients.info/bogos

wrote:

Virtually all ancient coins are cleaned, and typically harshly, using
brass brushes, dental tools, and chemicals....

I hear some have actually used files.

I'm using vinegar and not lemon juice because it's
slightly more acidic, but it's riskier too because of this.

If you are trying to remove silver sulfide, you are using the wrong chemical.



++++++++++
Phil DeMayo - always here for my fellow Stooge
When bidding online always sit on your helmet
Just say NO to counterfeits

Reid Goldsborough wrote:
This is an example of the kind of topic that gets me in trouble here
g, a controversial topic, but yet one that I find interesting and
compelling, one worthy of thinking about and writing about: cleaning
coins.

Attitudes among collectors are much different from attitudes among
dealers, and attitutes among collectors of U.S. coins are much
different from attitudes among collectors of ancient coins. Some
people are puritanical. "Never clean a coin," they shout, over and
over. You understand the reason for their overreaction: many coins in
the past have been damaged by harsh cleaning.

Yet dealers, some of them, perhaps many of them, routinely clean
(conserve, curate) coins, and there's a service out there, NCS, that
does this, and dipping is a form of cleaning, as is soaking on soappy
water, as is using acetone. Etc. Virtually all ancient coins are
cleaned, and typically harshly, using brass brushes, dental tools, and
chemicals, for the obvious reason that many come into collectors'
hands from having been buried in the ground for 2,000 years, give or
take, and are deeply encrustated with dirt, organic matter, and so on.

I'm in the process now of "improving" some of my ancient coins. I've
done this a bit in the past, not much, making some mistakes along the
way, trying to read as much as I can about what others have done to
avoid making more. Until yesterday I hadn't done any of this for a
while -- scared. g I haven't ruined any expensive coins, yet, but I
came close in the past with one, so I've avoided until now
experimenting with this further. But as we speak I'm soaking one very
cool coin in white wine vinegar to improve it. Here's a picture of it,
pre-cleaning:

http://rg.cointalk.org/misc/emergency_owl.html

It's an "Emergency Issue" Athenian Owl tetradrachm, a coin issued by
Athens c. 405-404 BC during the final stages of the Peloponnesian War,
which Athens lost to Sparta. It's a silver-plated bronze coin, a
fouree. Fourees are tyipcally ancient counterfeits, but this coin is
an official issue, issued because Sparta had cut off Athens' silver
supplies, and the Athenians were desperate. It matches the official
Emergency Issues in Sear (2535) and Svoronos (pl. 15, no. 13), with an
Athena on the obverse sporting a frontal eye whose opened inner corner
is beginning to transition to a fourth-century profile eye.

Another very cool thing about this particular speimen is that it looks
as if it just came from the ground. It's black. Nobody, yet, has tried
to clean it, from all appearances. So what I'm doing is soaking it for
two hours at a time in vinegar, a mild acid, then using as soft tooth
brush and dishwashing detergent to brush off the black toning/patina
to improve the coin's eye appeal. Soak-brush, soak-brush, ...

There's risk involved. Vinegar, like any acid, can pit the coin. If I
soak too long or brush too hard, I can scrape off part of the silver
plating, though this isn't necessarily negative with fourees unless
it's too extensive. I'm using vinegar and not lemon juice because it's
slightly more acidic, but it's riskier too because of this. We'll see.
So far the coin is looking better -- slightly more silver poking
through, particularly on the obverse. I'll post a pic when I'm done.

Fun stuff...


All the information anyone could ever need or want to know concerning
coins (including non US) and the cleaning of / why one should / why one
shoudn't is all but a google search away withing this very news group.

I can't see why anyone could possibly feel compelled to write another
word on the subject when all the fundamental data already exists (and
has been beaten to death on numerous occasions) over the past six years
or so that i've been reading and posting here.

You must be a newbie to this NG to be thinking things like :

'one (topic) worthy of thinking about and writing about: cleaning coins.'

Well...is it? It isn't in my books. It's a topic that is regularly and
consistently hammered flat right here on this NG. It's bloody downright
boring if you follow those threads. same stuff in an endless
loop.....just like your post is designed to generate (grin or no grin).

Now then, a coin subject that really is worthy of thinking and writing
about is one that hasn't already been so flattened by the thousands of
posters on the subject who have already gone before you n'est ce pas?
I'm sure you can come up with one if you really thought about it (?)

Ian

ulsion (Phil DeMayo) wrote in message ...
wrote:

Virtually all ancient coins are cleaned, and typically harshly, using
brass brushes, dental tools, and chemicals....

I hear some have actually used files.

I've used a file, as I've related here. Also as I've related here,
just now, in fact, it's common practice to use brass brushes and steel
dental tools and other harsh methods in cleaning ancient coins. What's
your point? Oh, I know. You want to try to make fun of me for filing
off a small patch of horn silver on a Thasos tetradrachm I bought, an
incident I discussed here at least twice. As I said, this was an
experiment I made that I wouldn't repeat, though as I said it
significantly improved the coin's eye appeal. The filing removed both
the horn silver (silver chloride) and the corrosion that other methods
of removing the horn silver might have left behind. With various
methods, I removed the file marks on the coin, though its surfaces are
now not what they were, and it's for this reason I wouldn't do this
again.

I'm using vinegar and not lemon juice because it's
slightly more acidic, but it's riskier too because of this.

If you are trying to remove silver sulfide, you are using the wrong chemical.

You're out of your league here, with ancient coins. Silver sulfide is
only one of many possible components of the black patina on this
ancient silver coin. If you're going to suggest dipping it, this is a
controversial practice with ancients. Dipping a 2,000 year old ancient
coin can turn it even blacker. More on all this later later, save to
say that this Emergency Issue Owl today is looking mighty fine, though
I sweated much...

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Coin Collecting: Consumer Protection Guide:
http://rg.ancients.info/guide
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Bogos: Counterfeit Coins: http://rg.ancients.info/bogos

Ian wrote in message ...

Now then, a coin subject that really is worthy of thinking and writing
about is one that hasn't already been so flattened by the thousands of
posters on the subject who have already gone before you n'est ce pas?
I'm sure you can come up with one if you really thought about it (?)

Why somebody feels compelled to spend six paragraphs saying they find
a core coin area boring and not worth talking about rather than
ignoring the thread?

Hey, you'll like the way the coin looks now. You can see the silver.
And I now know that the silver covers only a part of the coin's
surfaces, most of the obverse, very little of the reverse. You can't
fool me. Despite your protests, you can't wait for me to tell more.
g

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Email: (delete "remove this")

Coin Collecting: Consumer Protection Guide:
http://rg.ancients.info/guide
Glomming: Coin Connoisseurship: http://rg.ancients.info/glom
Bogos: Counterfeit Coins: http://rg.ancients.info/bogos