All of us have acquired coins, usually bronzes, that are so dark that they are difficult to view the details of the coin. I have recently acquired two very dark bronzes, in one case, the coin, a sestertius of Severus Alexander, that is almost black in appearance. It is a common coin and no great beauty but still could be a nice addition to my collection if it were lighter in color. The second is a Ptolemaic bronze of Ptolemy VI (probably) with a nice image of Isis despite considerable wear as you can see from the reverse but again, though a very dark brown rather than black, it is still pretty dark and somewhat difficult to see the image of Isis clearly. My question is, have any of the members here ever found a way to lighten the color of such coins without doing damage to the surface. If you have ever attempted a project like this, for better or worse, could you tell us of your experiences. if you think I should just get better lighting in my rec room and leave them alone, please feel free to say that. Thanks
Buy better lights. Ancient coins without colored patinas do tend to be a bit dark by current standards but the light brown ones you might prefer are most likely fully cleaned and retoning. Remember that many ancient coins were found and first cleaned before the US issued its first coins 200+ years ago so what strikes you as beautiful, natural surfaces are cleaned and working on becoming naturally black again. You will do nothing to improve these coins in the long run. I suggest you sell them to someone who likes their current look and buy freshly cleaned ones that are currently more popular. Your photos are quite decent. Usually here we see black circles and are told that the coin was too dark to make a decent image. Coins are what they are. It is up to the human to provide light in a quantity that allows the coins to be seen.
In my head I know you are right. I guess I was wondering if somebody had invented (without my knowing about it) some concoction that will lighten a coin but not harm the metal, turning black into a medium tan/light glossy green smooth finish enabling the viewer to read the coin's inscription, at night, by candlelight, from twenty feet away. Oh, it should also cost no more than $2 per quart.
Interesting thread. Dark bronzes are indeed hard to photograph and even in hand sometimes hard to see in real, non-digital life. Here are a few scenarios: Dark, glossy patina on a Faustina II sestertius - a hard-to-see (and photograph) coin: Dark, glossy patina with scattered desert patina making things stand out on this Faustina I sestertius. I like this coin a lot, but I am suspicious of the patina - it is almost too good to be true and a combination of hard, glossy dark patina with a "desert" overlay is not something I've seen a lot of. A soak in distilled water might clean off the "desert" but it would be a less purty coin, I think: A cautionary tale - somebody tried to strip off the patina on this sestertius of Marcus Aurelius (not me, I promise). It left a mottled, "camouflage" look that is quite unattractive. Too bad, because the coin itself is pretty decent for grade. So in other words, beware cleaning an ancient bronze:
You know, this may be one of those rare examples of when to use electrolysis. It might actually improve that coin to strip it down to bare metal and then let it slowly repatinate itself over time.
I would concur with @dougsmit that the OPs pictures are solid already, considering, I can see a majority of the inscription just from the picture and you can expect the coin to be even more legible in hand.
I have a few of these chocolate or black patinated coins. I find them hard to photograph with my current set-up.
Hi All, I've found that, if you have Photoshop (mine is PS6) you can lighten up the photo of a dark coin with Image/Adjustments/Shadows-Highlights and then just adjust the Shadows slider. All the best, Col
Some of mine are quite black, and still look good to me. I use Photoscape and it has a very handy batch processing feature that lets you brighten a whole folder of coin pix to your heart's content. Digitally, there are about infinite possibilities when it comes to altering or improving an image.
