I got the following coins at my local coin club's monthly auction. They are the worst (by far) of a mixed lot of 9 coins that I paid $10 bucks for. My intent is to "conserve" the coins by different methods to see what the results might be. In a least two of the cases I'll use "cleaning" methods (no mechanical) to see if the eye appeal can be increased. The other coin I'll use Verdi-care only because I think it might be successful in raising both the eye appeal and the numismatic value of the coin. I'll come back and post the results. I don't expect the first coin to improve at all because it's mostly worn smooth ( it might only be a similar sized token for all I can tell). The second coin should see some improvement and the third one will only get Verdi-care because it's the least damaged of the three. I'll post the results in a few days since I have to order the Verdi-care. Any predictions?
Unless you can pull out some pre-cancer concern blue ribbon, I do not think you will see much of an improvement.
I don't think you will see any improvement, and the first coin is a British half pence from the early 1770's.
Some first results. This one is the one on the left that I didn't think would turn out with anything. I'm pleasantly surprised. The new pic was taken under basically the same lighting conditions and in the same orientation as the original.
$10 and whatever a bottle of Verdi-care costs, I could have purchased a very nice maintenance free coin for that. No, seriously, have fun with the experiment. I'll peek in to see the results...
Well, I also bought a bottle of Verdi-gone and should get it today for the third coin. In the same lot I got the following: 1864 2-cent (probably aG) 1834 large cent, small 8 large stars (aG to G, but it has some obverse pitting) 1865 2 cent (aG but rim damaged) 1813 large cent (G to VG) 1865 2 cent (aG) So I didn't do too badly for the $10 I spent.
It's all the silver references you are making that concern me. I'd still settle for one maintenance free gold reference or AU condition coin, instead.
OK so here's an update for the first coin. These are the three pics in time order. Comments? The coin has now been treated with Verdi-care and in an air-tite. Coin number two is still in work but not showing a lot of improvement.
