Cleaning and Toning of Ancient Coins; Opinions and Controversy Expected

Hey TIF => kick back, look-out over your sun-deck, take a deep breath and think to yourself ...

=> hey, my coins rock!! (wow, those dudes love my fricken coins!!)

... oh, and even more importantly => stevex6 thinks that I am a total coin-Godesss!!

=> fricken yeah!!




100% my friend (keep doin' what you're doin'!!)

we love you!!

 

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Or maybe something industrial strength:
http://eurekadrytech.com/fast-super-dryer/xdc-500

 

Go take a cold bath Little Brother.

 

I love toning that appears "natural" or "old cabinet," but not rainbow toning on ancients, which seems an artifact of modern storage or chemistry. If I had TIF's Gordian III radiate coin I would take it and rub (yes, rub, with fingers) the rainbow parts of the toning and I bet they would come off easily. I'll bet they are micro-thin. The gray part of the toning is, to me, nice, but the blue and purple scream "modern fiddling".

 

I had no idea cleaning and accelerated toning is so openly discussed with ancient coins. Coming from the world of modern coin collecting, the OP would have been tarred and feathered, ran to the edge of town by a mob of pitchfork weilding numismatists, and thrown of the tarpeian rock.

Reputations have been lost overnight for doing what you did to that Gordian III to 19th century coins, and previously well respected numismatists have been reduced to a puddle of tears, having to beg for forgiveness. I guess my world of modern coins is more puritanical about these things.

 

People knew how to have fun in those times better than during the 19th century

Q

 

It's certainly an interesting subject. Original patinas on ancient silver coins would be black... very dark black. Virtually all ancient silver coins have been cleaned... mechanical cleaning, chemical cleaning, etc. Those blast-white ancient silver coins? Cleaned relatively recently. "Natural" retoning will occur over time unless sealed away and protected against sulfur elements in the environment. Is accelerating the toning wrong? How far is too far? Leaving the coin on a sunny windowsill? Placing it in an old "toner" album? Placing it in container with a boiled egg? Dipping it in sulfur? Anything at all that is intentional? Everyone will have a different opinion. Since the initial post I did re-strip the tarnish and am allowing the tone to take on a more subtle toning. That doesn't take long in my location if I simply leave the coin open to room air.

All of these silver patinas should probably be viewed as transient unless great care is taken with storage. I have many gorgeously toned coins (received that way) for which I'd like to preserve their current state of toning/tarnish. Some of these have patinas which appear to be stable over a relatively long time, looking at prior sales images. Those are very carefully stored. Others that have been stripped more recently (by others), I am less careful with and check often to see what they look like. If/when they appear to be toning, once they have toned "enough" I place them into a more protected storage setup.

Bronze coins are another matter entirely. My experience with "sand" patinas has led me to suspect most of them. I've had a great number of coins in which the "sand" patina is just some yellowish/orangish wax-like or makeup-like substance rubbed into the crevices. That does indeed make the devices stand out but it can also cover up pits and problems, plus the substance itself might be damaging to the metal. Generally, when I receive a bronze coin I carefully examine it. If the "sand" patina is soft and can be scraped with a fingernail, I soak it in rubbing alcohol which removes the makeup-like junk. If that doesn't remove it, I try acetone. If that doesn't remove it, I try mineral spirits. If it remains, it might be real and I stop.

I've removed the makeup-like gunk from a number of coins and doing so usually revealed less appealing surfaces and in some cases, probable bronze disease. Whether the bronze disease was caused by the fake patina or hiding the disease, I don't know. There are a few eBay/Vcoins sellers who appear to routinely put such substances on their bronze coins, and I generally stay away from those unless they will remove the substance and take pictures for me, and then only buy it if the coin still looks okay. Here's an interesting article about applied patinas and tooling of bronze coins: http://www.fontanillecoins.com/tooling.htm

 

Yah, things with make-up on 'em are always trying to hide something, eh?




Oh and sadly, I totally agree that desert-patina is now on my "no-buy" list ... yah, although I love the examples that I've already collected, it is too damn hard to figure-out if the coin is real, let alone have to worry about whether some chump smeared glue-and-sand all over it!!

So although I was actually in the KISS Army (I know, how geeky, eh?), moving forward, I am probably gonna avoid any potential make-up coins!! (sorry, Ace)

 

Going back to TIF's original post, I think the cleaning on the Gordian was an improvement. I'd prefer it not to have the accelerated toning, however, because the rainbow look doesn't appear natural to me.

In my experience, you can find ancients with natural rainbow toning, but it's not common. I've seen some in the trays at the ANS in NY, but usually you find colored toning on nearly black coins in the protected areas around the devices where original mint luster still lurks. It's far less common to find them on the devices in my experience.

As for artificially toning ancients coins, I've heard the best way is to use liver of sulfur. I actually bought some to experiment on some coins as I have a few lower value coins that are blast white and will never tone. I'm afraid to do it though and probably never will.

How a coin was originally cleaned I'm convinced affects it's ability to tone. I've got coins that were heavily cleaned and I know have been in collections for 30-40 years and are still virtually Morgan dollar white. Some coins have gone very dark in my collection after only 5 years.

I basically won't buy blast white, over cleaned coins anymore. In fact, I will pay a premium for a naturally well toned coin. Sometimes a significant premium because it is a statement of the quality of the coin's surfaces.

 

This is my preference as well. The original cleaning was an improvement since, well, gunk is gunk, and the cleaned coin clearly shows the surfaces and overall condition much better than before cleaning.

The additional toning is more a matter of preference, and while I don't disagree that the toning is/can be attractive, it's not something a 2000-year-old coin would still retain so it's clearly somewhat unnatural.

And as TIF points out, all silver coins will eventually tone to a dark, "natural" patina anyway.

 

Because "desert patinas" are mentioned several times in this thread, I should say that there's no reason to be paranoid about buying coins with some sandy deposits. As with any facet of vetting, one needs to acquire some knowledge and look carefully. Not every coin with dirt is re-patinated. In fact, if you shun all coins with sandy deposits, you're throwing a mountain of babies out with the bath water.

 

Valid points, John. I do still buy some coins with sandy patinas, although I do so knowing that it may be applied. Sometimes it is just loose dirt, purposefully left to enhance the contrast. Sometimes it is a harder and more adherent substance.

 

Blast white, sellers pics, in hand it looked freshly minted.


Then 20 minutes in a bag with an egg

 

Some old cabinet, and/or envelope toning on a denarius of S. Severus, just for show and tell...

 

Interesting. I must say, I think you improved it. I like the bit of toning, and it doesn't look artificial. I've got a couple of new denarii, including the Scaurus type, that are too white for my tastes, but I've put them in old envelopes which I assume have some sulphuric content. We'll see what happens (or maybe my grandchildren will).

 

I didn't want to get rainbow toning, I just wanted to calm it down a bit! Whether or not it will continue to darken, I am not sure. I will check it again tomorrow.

 

I know, the US coin forum can be very harsh in regards to issues of toning. I've gotten quite a bit of negative feedback on an 1840 sitting Liberty 50 cent piece because it is just too shiny, even though it is graded by PCGS and is a problem free coin.

 

One that I'm waiting on. The owner before me bought this from Joel Malter in March 1970 and I believe it has been in an envelope ever since and acquired some nice toning


I've been considering seeking out a source of similar envelopes to throw a few of my blast white denarii like this into:

 

@Sallent modern coins and ancient coins are two very different animals. When you start on ancients you need to throw the rule book out of the window.