Hi everybody and welcome to my experiment! I enjoy cleaning ancient roman coins and want to give some information to others that might have thought of trying to clean ancient romans. My overall goal is to show what to expect when buying uncleaned ancient coins. This thread will continue to grow as more of the coins below are cleaned! I have recently purchased 10 ancient roman coins off of eBay pictured below. All of these coins were pictured so I knew what I was getting into. This is how all uncleaned coins should be bought off of eBay! Buying coins from eBay without a picture of the exact coins can be extremely risky as you will normally get low end cull coins! All coins below are between the 3rd and 4th century as stated in the listing. This is the time period that most uncleaned coins come from. The main experiment is the quality of the coins before and after cleaning. The general thought is that more detail seen on the coin when purchased is the more you will get after cleaning. With all the coins I have cleaned so far, I agree with this statement. Hopefully this experiment will give a general idea of what a coin will look like after cleaning compared to what it looked like uncleaned. I will be using water, a nylon brush, and an extremely steady hand to clean the coins. After being cleaned, I will post a picture of the coin with the attribution. Here are the coins numbered 1 through 10. Click on the photos for a larger image Other Photos:
Subscribing, I have hundreds of uncleaned ancients and I've never known what to do with them. Good luck.
Hello again everyone and thanks for all the interest in my experiment! Here is coin number 1 after being cleaned: This one was an easy one to attribute as I have one exactly like it in my collection! Weight: 1.830 grams Diameter:14.287 mm (AE4) Mint: Siscia, 355-361 AD RIC VIII Siscia 398 Obverse: Bust Facing Right. Legend: DN CONSTAN-TIVS PF AVG Reverse: Soldier standing, facing left holding globe and spear. Star in right field. Legend: SPES REI_PVBLICE This coin cleaned up very nice and only required some water and a nylon brush. Some of the smaller details need a little work with a pick, but overall was a fast clean. This was a very interesting coin to start the experiment! This coin showed some nice detail before being cleaned and showed some more intricate detail on the obverse after being cleaned. There is a little bit of wear in the high point of the coin but nothing too terrible. One problem that was found after cleaning was the patina on the reverse. After being scrubbed with the nylon brush, it became evident that the patina on the back was very weak. Upon further cleaning I realized that some dirt was covering where the weak patina wore off or was never properly formed. Overall, not a terrible coin even though that some of the patina is missing on the reverse. Hopefully some of the next coins come out in better condition! You never know what you are going to get! -Jimmbob82
That one took about five minute scrubbing with the nylon brush, and about another five working on some of the smaller details with a pick. This one was definatly one of the fastest I have ever cleaned! Just had to be careful with the reverse since the patina was really weak. Jimmbob82
