Another NEWP, and medal/exonumia guru advice (conservation question)

Cross posting with another forum to enhance responses. This is a recent NEWP, a 1759 medal for the Battle of Belleisle.

Among my favored themes are mythological beasties and the hippocamp is one of my top favorites. This is a medal I've been on the lookout for for a long time. It's not is superb condition, but good enough for me, though I surely spent too much money chasing it. Such is life .

And, let me be clear, even though I have a question, I am Very Happy to have this medal and have no problems with the purchase.

I do have a bit of a question though. My photos vs. the auction house are very different. Clearly the same piece as all the other marks are there but the appearances of all of them are so very different given the photo skills.

My question is looking at some of the surface issues (close up near the hippocamp's jawline is the most obvious)--I didn't see it on the auction photos, and I wonder if that is something that can develop (ie if they used old photos), vs. just not well elucidated in their shots.


My shot is on the left and the right is a crop from the auction photo.

And most importantly, is this an ongoing process that needs to be addressed? In other words conserved? I don't usually fuss so much over medals, but if it's 'fresh' I really want to arrest the process.

@yarm @Insider (I think I'm tagging folks who know this stuff)

 

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@messydesk you might have some insight on this.

 

OF course! I'm leaving off too many good people!

 

First that is a neat medal. I am imagining that it is Bronze.
I am not sure what has grown on the coin but it would try and remove it before it gets to bad. Is it green in color?
At first glance it looks to be some built up gunk.

I will also wait for the opinions of folks that have restored these coins, but I would try a quick soak in acetone and see if it. A) Turns color or B) Just comes off.

It seems like a quick turn from auction house to you.
Hopefully it is an easy fix.

 

Not green, just a darker brown. I haven't tried a thing and honestly I'd be more inclined to send it to NCS...but I don't want it in a slab and they auto-slab things now. At least last time I checked.

 

Very nice medal. The auction house sure did their best to minimize the gunk around the head. If it were mine, I'd try @Pickin and Grinin's method first. Maybe you should also start a thread on the Ancient coins forum. Those folks seem to have a lot of experience with conservation methods. If you do send it in to NGC's conservation service (or PCGS), you can always crack it out of the holder or ask them not to put it in a holder.

 

Do you have an auction image of the entire medal?

 

Weird. Is the bit on the coin some sort of raised gunk or corrosion, or is it discoloring that's smooth and flush with the coin's surface?

Your picture and the auction one are lit slightly differently, so it might be possible that the light could hide discoloration in the surface. Your picture is also sharper. I don't think lighting would hide raised gunk, though. Do you have a link to the original auction? It's possible that the image was retouched using a clone stamp, but I can't see a match for what would have been cloned in the image. It might show up on the picture of the full medal. It does seem odd that someone would touch up only this area, as I can't imagine it affected the price by much.

 

Well, that was interesting. Looking at it through my camera lens it looked totally raised.

I just took another look using a loupe and different light and the awful raised look in my photo is barely noticeable. And it's darker/mostly flat, just a bit of irregularity to the surface. It almost looks oily-ish like some leftover surface oil/treatment which may have reflected my lights very differently.

What looks like a lot of surface debris around the jaw...is flat and darker. There is SOME increased texture, but not nearly like my shot.

I had tried a modified light ring set up...with LEDs that required some color correction. I'm guessing that must have really done that.

Comparing in hand to the auction photo, the auction is way more accurate. Interesting and too bad I hadn't looked at it with the loupe first! And crazy how bad my shots made it. I'll be re-doing them for sure.

In any case, I had no doubt the auction pictures were honest...just different. And, confirmed better now that I looked closely without a camera lens.

It was Stacks after all! I think the site was down earlier but I can link it now. Please no judging at how much I paid (my typo was pain...not too far off). I REALLY wanted this one. https://auctions.stacksbowers.com/l...le-bronze-medal-1759-george-ii-extremely-fine

 

If it makes you feel better, I think their estimate was very low and unrealistic. If you're happy with the price, that's what matters! Much more than that, I can't comment on the price, these are not my area. But it is a very nice medal!

 

Good to hear that it was an unintentional lighting side-effect, and that the coin looks better than what you photographed at first.

 

It adds to the eye appear the little bit of dust and evident circulation.
It looks like an honest piece though.

I would leave it alone unless the areas grew. I don't always recommend it but,
I have had to oil some coins in my collection. It can arrest some forms of corrosion that is otherwise just a futile attempt.

 

Would xylene drastically alter the medal? I've never used it, only acetone.

 

Looking at it closely some more I do agree there is a something, and it looks like what you say..oil and funk on it. My photos completely exaggerate it.

I’ve got an unopened container of Xylene maybe it’s time to try it out. I was hesitating a bit on the acetone. Only concern is if there is a color change from being protected by the oil-gunk layer.

Sounds like my weekend project including new photos is set. Unless I just say to heck with it and let NCS have a crack at it. It was’t my MOST expensive medal, but far from my cheapest. And one of the more elusive.

 

I had used acetone on a few tokens - aluminum and brass - to remove PVC residue and the brass changed color slightly. Good to know about the xylene, I have a few ancients and tokens requiring PVC residue removal.

 

Well, I ended up taking a few shots over as I got a couple coins in the mail. Used my more standard 4x lights with diffusers over them (daylight LED things). I think the oddball lighting in the first attempt had me fiddling too much with the exposure corrections and I overdid it with the 'shadows'. This one I barely did anything to and it definitely looks like some schmutz (the technical terminology).

 

Xylene is a nonpolar organic solvent and acetone is a highly polar organic solvent. They are both very good solvents, but in general, like dissolves like. Polar solvents more easily dissolve polar contaminants, like most salts and oxides. Neither should be very reactive with copper metal itself, but I would guess acetone would be more likely to react with some corrosion products or contaminants. Xylene is pretty unreactive. (Both are flammable.) My guess is you are not looking for the fastest or most powerful solvent, but one which can do the job with the least interaction with the rest of the coin and its natural oxide coating.

Disclosure: I used to be a chemist, but only used xylene etc. for surface science research, and haven't tried using it to clean coins.

 

Thanks for the reply @The Eidolon !