How do I clean the dirt and scum from this letter?

I think the most important issue here is - what do you want the coin to look like at the end of the project? If you are after a museum piece or entering it in a contest, you have one approach. If you have a coin that has been in the ground for 2000 years and you want it to be identifiable and presentable, you should have a different approach. Anything you do to the 2000 year old coin is an improvement. Some approaches will leave very fine hairline scratches when viewed under magnification. But, sitting in a presentation tray it might just look like a very nice really old coin. With a light touch and some careful smoothing techniques most coins turn out very acceptable.

 

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When It' using a brush or cloth it's that dirt that you push around that scratches metal or glass. Paper doesn't even scratch glass like they claim.

I use paper exclusively on glass and mirrors and have never scratched anything. One day I used my cotton denim jeans to wipe my cell phone, and there was a small piece of grit in my jeans, and that put a big scratch on my phone. First one ever.

So, yes, that grit in your coin will scratch it up if you wipe. And I think a thorn or bamboo would also be pushing grit around and making scratches.

I say ultrasound. It's for silver and gold, right?

 

Inspector43, posted: "I think the most important issue here is - what do you want the coin to look like at the end of the project? If you are after a museum piece or entering it in a contest, you have one approach. If you have a coin that has been in the ground for 2000 years and you want it to be identifiable and presentable, you should have a different approach. Anything you do to the 2000 year old coin is an improvement. Some approaches will leave very fine hairline scratches when viewed under magnification. But, sitting in a presentation tray it might just look like a very nice really old coin. With a light touch and some careful smoothing techniques most coins turn out very acceptable.

I'm curious. I've not met a confessed coin doctor before. Care to say how many ancients you have altered?

 

Zero

 

In all fairness @Insider I should elaborate.
I think there is a big difference between cleaning, smoothing and tooling. If you change the details to the point that the coin appears to be something other than what it started out as, then you are Tooling. I am one who is not afraid to clean my coins. I get to the detail needed for identification and then smooth out the residual cleaning marks. I use a very high mag stereo scope and fine tools. I don't modify the coin at all. Some of my smoothing included Ren Wax. It has a tendency to to fill in and draw the base metal up making for a better looking coin. I have never ALTERED a coin.

 

Thing is, glass is a lot harder than coin metals. And even if it weren't, any speck of grit caught between the paper and the glass or coin could still cause scratches. And even if it didn't, a soft item can still damage a harder one. For proof, look at water-jet cutters.

 

I was with a company that manufactured water jet cutters. They would cut anything. We sold them for lots of uses, even off shore for removal of drilling rigs. Put it in a very thick leg down several hundred feet and cut right through the steel.

 

Let me elaborate in response. When I started authenticating ancients, that word "smoothing" never existed. I don't know which auction company either in the US, Britain, or Germany came up with the term "smoothing" to lessen the damage the actual act of tooling did to the price of the coin they were selling. When a coin's surface is smoothed (altered to hide corrosion) without changing the design, it is still tooled.

The same thing goes on today when coins that are actually Buffed or Polished are in the market with a label stating they are (just ) "cleaned."

"Smoothed" coins are alterations and they will always be alterations. Perhaps one day, they will become as undesirable AGAIN as lacquered coins (once the accepted norm for copper and now considered "detailed" for their altered surface).

 

1887 DDO Indian Cent.

 

C-B-D, posted: 1887 DDO Indian Cent.

 

By this definition a coin that was in circulation for decades or centuries has been tooled and altered by normal wear and corrosion, much more than any restoration, cleaning or polishing will do.

 

Pretty sure they put an abrasive in the water, such as sand.

That's why I recommend ultrasound. It uses clean water.

 

I guess what you are saying is that smoothing is the act of covering up tooling. I can't see anything being considered tooling if the action never touches the original surface. If I remove nearly all of the 2000 year build up of dirt but never get to the base metal, how can that be tooling? I will smooth the remaining crud to blend the microscopic lines left in the final layers of crud without touching the original base metal. It is too bad that we live in a time and place where there is so little trust. It's probably been like that forever though. It is good, though, that my coins are never intended to leave home. Thanks for the feedback as I will modify my vocabulary.

 

I guess I was wrong then? I thought it was this coin:

 

There are systems that work with pure water as well. Put enough kinetic energy into a small enough spot, and "hardness" doesn't matter.

 

BronzeAge, posted: "By this definition a coin that was in circulation for decades or centuries has been tooled and altered by normal wear and corrosion, much more than any restoration, cleaning or polishing will do."

It appears that you may be a YN or your post may be just a serious misunderstanding. So I'll apologize for not spending the time to explain tooling - a word that covers loots of things but not friction wear, chemical or mechanical cleaning, or polishing.

Tooling is moving metal (altering the surface) with an instrument of some type in order to change something on a coin. That includes "chasing" up a mintmark, adding missing design details, or smoothing a surface to improve its appearance.

As I already posted, at one time most tooled coins of any kind were considered to be fraudulent alterations. More leeway was given to bronze ancients as these often needed to be "improved."

The letter "M" I posted in the OP is on a CWT.

 

Inspector43, posted: "I guess what you are saying is that smoothing is the act of covering up tooling. I can't see anything being considered tooling if the action never touches the original surface. If I remove nearly all of the 2000 year build up of dirt but never get to the base metal, how can that be tooling? I will smooth the remaining crud to blend the microscopic lines left in the final layers of crud without touching the original base metal. It is too bad that we live in a time and place where there is so little trust. It's probably been like that forever though. It is good, though, that my coins are never intended to leave home. Thanks for the feedback as I will modify my vocabulary.

NO, smoothing is a sneaky little evasion of what is being done to a coin. Removing a crust of corrosion is one form of tooling and in 50+ years of looking at a lot of coins I have NEVER seen one of these altered coins that has not damaged the original surface BECAUSE there was no original surface remaining. It was corroded away! Smoothing to remove the pits left from corrosion is tooling also.

Smoothing is just a word someone devised to sell altered coins more easily and for more money. It would be like putting a rusty car repaired w/bondo and fiberglass covered with a coat of paint up for sale as a "restoration."

This has NOTHING to do with trust or the time we live. Folks have been altering coins with "tools" for centuries - some jobs come out better than others.

I applaud folks who take corroded or damaged coins and make them pretty. Some make a living doing it. That does not change the fact that the coins have been altered.

PS Technicians removing rock around fossils are also tooling the matrix around the specimen.

 

Rose thorns and a soft haired brush were suggested by Sheldon in his Large Cent Books. I can't remember whether it was goat hair or camel hair that he suggested.

The rose thorn comes to a sharp point and holds it's sharpness better than toothpicks. But it's softer than copper and won't scratch the surface. But removed debri and crud may be harder and should be removed carefully.

 

Good to know. Maybe my friend got the idea from him. He used to be an ancient coin dealer, but didn't make enough so stopped maybe 9 years ago. He used to have a Vcoins store.

 

@Insider Did you ever get the answer to your original question?
I learned that if you do anything to an ancient coin after it is removed from the ground it would be considered "tooling" and reduce the value to nothing.