A Cleaning, Before & After

I'm always a sucker for affordable medieval coins & this was listed fairly cheaply and as uncleaned. Since I am a tad more comfortable cleaning some very old silver with this kind of crust, I decided to get it and clean away.

A few days of soaking in diluted lemon juice & picking resulted in a much better looking coin. I probably could do better but some of that green copper is stubborn and I dont mind some gruff still on it.

Either way it's much better then before.

Also this king has big historical ties to Joan of Arc, another appeal.

Before



After


Charles VII le Victorieux, (1422 - 1461 A.D.)
AR Blanc à la Couronne
O: +KAROLVS FRANCORVM REX (castle), royal coat-of-arms within in trilobe; three crowns around; O pointed; annulet under sixth letter.
R: +SIT:NOME : DNI:BENEDIC:TV (castle), cross pattée with crowns and lis in opposing quarters; all within quadrilobe; O pointed; annulet under sixth letter.
25mm
2.53g
Duplessy 519A; Ciani

 

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I tend to like/keep the crusty stuff, but congrats on your new coin, either way.

 

That was a good outcome. I'm normally not much of a fan of cleaning, but it turned out well and improved the coin a bit. Nice coin Mat. I've been eyeing some of those late medieval French myself.

 

Looks so much better.

 

Congrats! That cleaning turned out excellent and I would've cleaned it as well. I recently purchased an uncleaned/partially cleaned coin with the intention to clean it, but it's an extremely rare type and I finally decided that rather than risk destroying it I'm just going to shell out the cash to have it professionally done(though I think I'm going to look for some like yours to learn cleaning silver on). The obverse is already nice, but the reverse has a bit of encrustation. Hopefully it will turn out as well as yours did:

 

A lot better

 

Not paying attention, I noticed I have the OP coin father.

Ex JA coin.


Charles VI "The Mad”, (1380 - 1422 A.D.)
AR Blanc Guénar
O: + KAROLVS: FRANCORV: REX; Shield of arms.
R: + SIT: nOmE: DnI: BENEDICTV; Cross with two crowns and two lis.
2.9g
29mm
DuP 377

 

I use the same method with lemon juice. Even for much more hard dirt.

 

red_spork,
It is necessary to take a bamboo toothpick, poke it into something hard, so that the end has become like a brush. When you take a coin out of juice, put it under running tap water and remove all the dirt from difficult places (inside letters, corners and etc.) by this toothpick. Only without pressure

 

Wow, those came out very well, Ivan! And you're not fooling about much more crust!

 

Mat, for such hard crust there are a little secret - you need to keep a cup with juice and coin warm. I am putting a cup on heating battery (about 50 degree Celsium) for a night, and at morning go to the bathroom with coin and toothpick to clean it finally.

 

What is the silver purity of some of the coins shown? The reason I was planning on sending the victoriatus in to be done professionally was that it's purity is lower, generally these were somewhere between 65%-85% I believe. Additionally I was told that there appears to be some horn silver on it which may need to have a reduction done as part of the cleaning.The advice given in this thread so far seems excellent however, and if I decide to clean it myself I will definitely be using lemon juice.

 

nice job and good call to clean it, Mat

 

Thanks, I know it would be a huge no no in the U.S. coin world. There would be a lot of .

 

I think even most US collectors would get over it if they saw the coins we'd be dealing with if we didn't clean em

 

That is true.

 

Yes! I like this procedure But could you tell me how to clean green patina on copper coins. some body told me to keep the coin in oil for some time but I did not get good results.

 

I developed a good product JPL Coin Care for that light green patina on copper (superficial only). I am impressed with your cleaning jobs with this so-called mild acid citric juice method. It should also work quite well on that remaing copper oxide dirt on that silver piece above - pH neutral type cleaning product.

John Lorenzo
Numismatist
United States

 

Good job you did @Mat on that Charles VII blanc

I have a sister coin of yours : a gold ecu minted by the same Charles VII


Charles VII (1422-1461) - Ecu d'or 3° emission de 1424, atelier de Toulouse (annelet sous la cinquieme lettre)
Croisette sur etoile initiale, KAROLVS : DEI : GRATIA : FRANCORVM : REX, Ecu de France couronné
+ XPC : VINCIT : XPC : REGNAT : XPC : IMPERAT, croix arquée, evidée et fleudelisée, cantonnée de quatre coronelles
3.76 gr, 28 mm
Ref : Ciani # 617

And a kind of "cousin" coin : a blanc, minted around the same years, but in the feudal principality of Dombes


Jean II de Bourbon (1456-1488), Blanc Atelier de Trevoux
+ IOhES : DVX : BORBONI : TREVORCII : DNS Ecu de Bourbon accosté de trois flammes dans un double trilobe
+ DISPERSIT (ROSE) DEDIT (ROSE) PAVPERIBVS A Croix pattée cantonnée de deux lis et deux flammes, dans un double quadrilobe
2.91 gr
Ref : Divo Dombes # 2, PA # 5076, Boudeau # 1044

Q

 

Alok Verma,
This is another story with the copper coins. My best copper coins obtained from Earth by detectorists I have send for dry cleaning to professionals on this field. But it was expencive coppers from several hundreds dollars to more than thousand.
But for simple coins there are a very good method I use a lot of times. But I do not recomend it for ancient coins! For 100-200-300 years coins it's OK, but for millenium age coins I think only about dry cleaning.
You'll need a piece of soap and a week of patience
This soap must containe Trilon B (I do not know if it correct in english - EDTA or ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid). It is necessary to take a knife and planed soap into a container in the form of small chips. Fill it with hot water and mix to soap is dissolved. Then drop a coin into the solution. After some time, the solution freezes and becomes a jelly. Forget about the coin on the half of the day, then pull, rub under running water by trimmed toothbrush and put it back into the solution by other side. After 1-2 days, when solution becomes green, prepare a new solution.
This method have a good proven results. The method is very gentle and slow, you can always stop at some intermediate position. This method will remove green oxides and keep safe your brown patina.
I have no photo before, only scan after cleaning. This is a rare coin. Who is interested in Russian coins see on Edge.