Desert patinas - how can you tell if they're real?

TIF's link is beyond interesting and alarming. To me the best part is the straight forward listing of adding fake sand patinas as an acceptable process. The examples shown were quoted as being more from vCoins than eBay. I stopped dealing with one vCoins dealer and held the vCoins attitude against every dealer there for a while. Now I still do not deal with that dealer or anyone who has only pigs wearing makeup but consider other dealers there good or bad on their own merits. It was nice when I felt comfortable saying that any vCoins dealers were fine because of the management policing of bad apples in their barrel. No more.

I bought a coin from the dealer in question and decided it had to go back for fake sand. He willingly refunded my money but expressed the opinion that his listing never stated the patina to be original. I take this and the opinion on the site TIF linked to mean that there is what I consider a subculture that considers this acceptable. I will say that some of the coins look better after repatination and I am sure I have missed some in my collection but I am trying to avoid them. I fully agree with TIF on this one. I'm not willing to destroy some of my coins that are sandy but which I believe are more likely natural just to find out.

One point perhaps not covered is the fact that a sand surface, either natural or added, can be smoothed with differing degrees of care. The same artistry in use of tools that could 'tool' a coin certainly could reveal the letters and detail on a coin with thick, natural sand. The same coin scrubbed randomly with a wire brush would not be as attractive and certainly not more desirable just because the conservation looked 'naturally blotchy'. I have no problem with coins cleaned to leave genuine dirt in the recesses but I do not approve of adding dirt whether you remove it as a second step or not. I once expressed the opinion that I would love (!) to be able to follow the 'life' of each of my coins from the time it was lost or buried to the time I got it just to see what it experienced in that journey. I suspect some of the stories would be more interesting to me than anything I have ever seen in movies or TV.

 

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