Help With Spot On Copper Medal?

You might want to try your new found chemical on a few pennies from your pocket first. If you somehow mess them up, it’ll be a VERY cheap lesson.

 

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whatever you do , don't rub it in. It will scratch it, no ?

 

PLEASE, try pocket change first...

 

yeah, where's gonna get bronze coins ? Maybe a bronze penny ?

 

No, it didn't come off at all, POS Medal! Unfortunately, nothing I tried worked, that's okay sometimes you win and sometimes you walk away to move onward to the next one! I tried distilled water, baking soda, acetone and MS70. I read enough about it to know that nothing would work! The blackness was caused by a chemical reaction, how it occurred, idk! I don't even know if it's bronze disease but whatever it is, it's there to stay! Unfortunately, after my wine cooler I lost my temper and I tried TarnX, bad idea!

 

Why, what did you do ? You better just put it away for now.

 

Yeah this Medal is completely ruined, it was ruined to start with and now it's even worse! Honestly, I could have sent it off for professional conservation but it's not worth it for me as the value isn't there. Most people don't even know who George B. Soley was and the collectors who do know about him don't want a ruined Medal so luckily I have another as I showed in the pics above! As far as Soley goes, I have made an Album of his designs above in the Gallery. This was a good learning experience for me as I learned two things. One, sometimes Medals or Tokens have damage from a chemical reaction and nothing can be done about it, period. The other thing I learned is MS70 is a terrible product to use on brass, bronze or copper as it makes the metal bleed, not sure why. It's a shame that the Medal is ruined but it's not like it was valuable or anything! Soley is the guy who minted all the little 13mm Prayer Tokens back in the late 1800's, see pics!

 

Ohh boy, live and learn .

 

You got that right! It looks so bad I didn't even want to post a pic of my experience but then I thought wtf? This is an educational forum so here it is! What's amazing is in hand you can tell that blackish crap has eaten it's way into the metal itself, looks horrendous. Below is a link on George Soley in case anyone is interested! Luckily I didn't pay much for it and I definitely learned a lesson!

https://www.fi.edu/history-resources/coin-press

 

Hey it all depends on the mark. I had a friend who had some patina on a 1851/81 Large Cent and soaked it in COKE and it luckily removed it nicely. This seems more like an ink type stain.