Any way to help out a bent coin ?

I have a little medieval that makes me sad every time I look at it, lol. Curious if there's anything that can be done by a lay-person after seeing a coin on Ebay that was "bent/flattened" without hardly even a trace. Especially since it's so thin.. May be a stupid question, but curious.

 

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Maybe stick it in a vice but have leather on the metal vice bits so there is no metal on metal?

 

I think the bible talks about a crooked rod and how you can't straighten it out, that also applies to a coin! I think if you try to straighten it out, you're gonna be sorry!

 

how about putting it in a thick book, and smacking it with a hammer?

 

Only hypothesizing.. Wondering how those "bent/flattened" coins come about tho. Hoping for a cpl tidbits of ancient wisdom.

 

That should buff out.

Leather would be the way to go.
I'd probably tape it to a leather flat and mark the spot of the bend.
Leather over the top and gently press the area you marked as the high spot.

I'd use a press.
Do it multiple times right side up then down repeat till it looks better.

If you happen to end up with 2 halfs you'll probably double your money.

 

I've got one a little more obvious that I wouldn't mess with.
I just tell everyone that it was Pirate approved.

 

I think this whole site may made for some interesting reading tomorrow, thx.

 

Love it. Glad yours has an excuse lol..

 

I have done this at times. The thinner the coin the better the luck. I wrapped in multiple layers of cloth, (to allow slippage and prevent metal on metal contact). YES, you are risking breaking the coin, so I take no responsibility for your actions. Just saying I have done it with similar coins VERY SLOWLY. Snug it in vice first. Whenever I though about it tightened a little more. Did it over the course of a few days. Might have been overkill cautious, but MOSTLY straightened up similar coins. Problem is just like holding a string at two ends and wanting it to be perfectly straight. Unless you are willing to OVERbend the coin, it will never be 100% straight after being bent. I was never willing to risk overbending, so I removed 96% of the bend from the coin.

Slow vice best option IMHO.

 

Get a fat girl to sit on it.

 

I've done the leather and vice thing and it worked on a lincoln cent very well. If you look close you can still see where the bend originated but overall I am very happy with the outcome. Good luck

 

Leather in a vice might work if the coin is not too thin and or too brittle. I have put slightly bent (not crimpt ) coins between two pieces of Clean lead and hit it with a mallet. Worked fine many times for me.

 

I enjoyed reading what he had to say, but...

On his page about annealing, he talks about quenching a coin after heating it. This is the opposite of what I'd expect to do. Annealing metal involves heating it, and then cooling it slowly; this leaves it softer and more malleable.

If you quench it, cooling it rapidly, the metal is made harder and less malleable. So it seems like that would undo your work, and possibly leave you worse off than when you started!

Now, I haven't studied ancient coin composition and restoration, and I sure haven't experimented with them -- but I have studied metallurgy a little bit, and experimented with heating and quenching various metals. Annealing them makes them softer, and heating and then quenching them makes them harder, almost universally. (I'm sure there are perverse alloys that behave differently, but they're definitely the exception.)

 

I would agree. Some people I have read about advocated warming a coin up, if not heating, to make it more malleable. I never have tried that since I would not trust that heating a coin would not permanently discolor it.

Now, I don't ever do this on a day it's 20 below either.......

 

I don't know about your coin but in the Colonial coinage a bent coin was to ward off witchcraft and spells.

 

Your bend is quite sharp, so what I'm going to say probably does not apply here. And I don't know know much about it anyhow. But it might be worth mentioning in this thread that some coins were made with roller dies, and some warp or bend is normal and as minted. (Maybe 1600's)? Maybe others can add.