I found this coin burried amongst a ton of one penny culls. 1) I am not sure how to figure out if this a high sea level or low sea level penny and what grade to access it at. 2) On the obverse there are a lot of hard wax like coating and particles. I am not sure if I should attempt cleaning it or not. Any ideas? -Thanks
Its high tide. To tell the difference look at the fold on Brittania's cloak, if the water line is above the fold its high tide if its below the fold its low tide. I don't know what to tell you about cleaning though.
Try soaking it in acetone. Acetone won't harm the coin, but should disolve organic compounds. I can't say I've tried it on wax before, but it couldn't hurt to try.
Oh I forgot. Grade: Minus the stuff on the obverse it would probably grade VF-XF. Leaning more towards XF. Once you can get the stuff of the obverse take another pic for an after.
No, it shouldn't... But if you want to be really sure, try it out on some of those culls you mentioned first.
Now I have a tendency to just scan long documents(I have ADD cant concentrate for too long), but according to this article it claims acetone is not good for copper. http://www.sunysb.edu/vescalab/research/research7.html Maybe try isopropanol?
I don't know what to tell you... I've used acetone on copper many times before without incident, but I would still recommend a test. I've heard of people using xylene and isopropanol as well, but I have no first hand knowledge with them.
