Too early to tell?

Out of pure boredom, I decided about a year ago to try my patience at an uncleaned ancient lot. Not a big lot, but one I thought would be fun to "discover" what lies within.

Best I remember, I have 20 bucks, including the shipping, invested in 21 coins. When I got them in and opened the bag, they resembled a bunch of slugs. No evident details whatsoever. I took pictures with my phone several times, but that device is no longer with us, so all I have is what they look like today.

I kind of read up a little on how to clean them, not much, I'm a man, it's not manly to ask for directions until after you're ashamed. I soaked them in water for a month, all I got was stained water. I bought a very fine bristled brass brush and brushed on them a little, turned my hands black. Was at my mom's one day, and in her trash can, I spied a half a bottle of olive oil, being the recycling type, I got it. I'm quite sure it was my idea to try it, though I could have read it somewhere, doubtful. Anyway I soaked them in it for 4 months, I got busy doing something else. I took them out brushed them a little and to my amazement, I could almost see details on a couple.

I put them all back in the container with a fresh batch of olive oil, well fresh from the recycled bottle, sealed them back up and let them soak some more. The note I left on the container, says 8/13/16.

Tonight it took a couple out to check on them. Woo hoo, I see something. It may take another year but this is beginning to get fun.

The two I took out and brushed off tonight.

This one has been the biggest surprise, it literally looked like a large peanut M&M when I got it.


I put them back in the tub and put today's date on the note. Back on the shelf for another 3 or 4 months. Can anyone make out the bottom coin?

 

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Good job on the top one, not sure on bottom but it looks a bit like a Constantine bust and camp gate reverse needs more soaking to be sure.

 

Second coin, mint mark SMKA see wildwinds
Cyzicus
RIC VII 24, A

 

Is that 34, A or 24?

 

It's more of a starting point really! The coin needs to be cleaned a little more. If there is a dot after the mint mark, that might make it 34.

 

Why was your mother throwing out perfectly good olive oil?

 

She has a house here, one in Kentucky and one in Pennsylvania. The home here was my parents "main abode", but she seldom stays here now. She cleaned out the cabinets so to speak, things that hadn't been used or had been expired for years.

 

Thank you. My photos are terrible but I believe it is silver. Or silver coated.

 

Unused oil can go rancid if you buy too large a bottle for your dietary habits. My question is whether oil past using for salads is still potent for coins. I do recall reading that the more expensive Extra Virgin Oil is not as good for coins since the acid content of the cheap stuff is better for the purpose. I have never been a fan of oil soak cleaning. I lack patience.

 

Okay, way off the original topic, but actually, it's not a good idea to let coins soak in olive oil for months at a time because it's slightly acidic and it can eat into and cause pitting on the coin's surface.

 

Any suggestions? I have a bottle of 10w40

 

The top one looks to be done and should be taken out unless the blurriness is fooling me. If it has a patina, it will start to come off if left too long. Olive oil is a way to loosen light encrustation but won't do much to harder surfaces. Some will say it shouldn't be used at all because it is acidic, but that is your call. My point is that it is natural and break down over time, but anything can be over done. I think you will need another method to remove stubborn encrustation, otherwise you may be waiting 20 years for it to get 'clean' .

 

After a good night's sleep, I decided that I was going to work on both when I get home tonight. I didn't do much to either last nite and as I looked at the photos this morning, the first does appear to be about done and the second, thanks to @Pishpash, makes me anxious to see the rest of it. I still have 19 more that have been soaking as long as these I didn't touch lastnite.

 

I tend to think the first is "done" as well. I could be wrong, as cleaning ancient coins isn't my hobby, but I don't think it could get any better.

 

Any hydrocarbon such as olive oil or any non-synthetic lubricant oil, will breakdown into organic acids as aging or rancidification occurs. Makes for great cheese taste , but it should increase in potency due to the stronger acid effect. One ancient coin "cleaner" once wrote he didn't use olive oil until it had been rancid a year. It would be interesting to see how much the pH changes over a year or more. If it was just the lubricity, non-synthetic neutral oil would work as well, such as clockmakers synthetic oil. I edited to add that this is a general answer as oil vary in natural as well as blended oils.

 

There is a lot to be said for just sticking to distilled water.

 

The second one looks like it was heavily encrusted and some started cleaning it with electrolysis. It also looks like it might still be silvered. Further electrolysis would remove the rest of the encrustation, but would also remove any remaining traces of silver wash. I would first try picking at the deposits with brass tools under a stereo microscope. If neither electrolysis nor a stereo microscope is possible, then stick with distilled water and lost and lots of patience.

The first one is done.

 

Thanks. No one had even attempted to clean this lot before I got them though, the post office shook off more dirt than the original owner. I poured them out of a zip lock bag in amidst a cloud of faint green tinted dust. The bottom coin was at least a half an inch thick
on the thin side. It seriously resembled one of these except with a slight olive drab tint. And the rest of the coins didn't vary much.

 

I hate to admit this, because I used to really enjoy cleaning uncleaned ancient coins, but anymore the fact that they were covered with dirt doesn't mean a whole lot. Diggers often clean up the coins just enough to see if there is anything really unusual or valuable and then re-dirty them by covering them in mud.

I'm not saying that that is the case with your coins. But this does happen more frequently than most uncleaned coin dealers like to admit. (And it's not the dealers' fault, either; they often buy in bulk and don't see what they're getting until the package arrives.)

BTW, the top coin is Constantius II, as Caesar, from the Trier mint. It dates from between 330 - 333 A.D. Surrounding the obverse bust is the inscription: "FL IVL CONSTANTIVS NOB C." The reverse is: "GLOR-IA EXERC-ITVS" and depicts two soldiers standing and facing each other, each holding a spear and resting their hand on a shield, with two standards between them.

 

Update. I was able to do a little more cleaning to the Camp gate. This crust is literally as hard as concrete.

Then did some hard scrubbing on the rest of the lot. Some of these are just now showing any sort of detail after a year of cleaning. I discovered that I have 3 more silvers. Woo hop, and believe that there may be another. The 3 that hadn't revealed anything until lastnite:

Then there is the rest of the 21: