I saved a coin from a slow, green, and ugly death (for now)

I've been continuing my recent collecting efforts on Ptolemaic coinage, with my focus being on bronze. Two of my captures have been the hefty, large drachms/octobols, which I have affectionately nicknamed "toe-crushers" . I'll save the other for another day but I wanted to highlight this one first.

Ptolemy II, Ptolemaic Kingdom
AE drachm
Obv: Laureate head of Zeus Ammon right, within dotted border
Rev: ΠTOΛEMAIOY BAΣIΛEΩΣ, two eagles (believed to represent Ptolemy II and his adopted son Ptolemy Nios) standing left on thunderbolt, wings closed, Λ between left eagle's legs
Mint: Alexandria
Date: Struck c.267-259 BC
Ref: Svoronos 479





It was a pretty good deal price-wise IMO at about $135 shipped. Even though it has moderate wear, it has a nice dark patina, all the major devices are visible, and has no notable issues or defects. When it arrived, I quickly noticed something that was not apparent from the seller’s photos: a couple of tiny spots of what appeared to be bronze disease that made their home at the top of Zeus Ammon’s head. I forgot to take photos of the BD before treating it, so I cropped the area from the main photo above and MS Painted how the spots looked like before treatment .



I still really wanted to keep the coin and to save it, and to me it looked like the BD would be easy to treat. I picked as much as I could with the pointy corners of a Sa-Flip (the only non-metal object I had that was small enough to fit in the affected areas), and then I left it soaking in distilled water, observing it each day. On the second day, I noticed the BD was slowly coming back, so with a jeweler’s loupe and a sewing needle I painstakingly dug a bit further and realized the BD was entrenched deeper than I had thought. So I carefully scraped the BD out until I reached the bare clay-colored bronze underneath (in the bottom green spot in the cropped photo), which told me that even though the surface area of the BD was very insignificant, it had still managed to eat through the patina (the BD in the top, smaller spot in the photo had managed to make a tiny groove in the patina but not eat all the way through).

I then re-soaked my drachm for another few days, but this time the BD did not return. I had soaked it for a total of a week. It’s been out in the open inside my air-conditioned South Florida home for a week-and-a-half now, and the BD still has not reared its ugly head again. I will be continuing to watch this coin like a hawk (or like one of the eagles depicted on the reverse)! Even though the main BD spot is down to bare metal, its so tiny that it blends in very well with the surrounding dirt and is not noticeable at first glance. A small (pun intended ) price to pay to save this wonderful coin.

Feel free to post your Ptolemaic coins and/or your bronze disease success stories!

 

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Very good, @ValiantKnight! I bought this one at a local show in early May but had to treat it for bronze disease. It took about a month of soaking in distilled water but it appears to be cured.

It dates from AD 143-145 and was issued in conjunction with the dedication of the Temple to Diva Faustina.


Faustina I, AD 138-140.
Roman orichalcum sestertius, 24.87 g, 31.2 mm, 11 h.
Rome, AD 143-145.
Obv: DIVA AVGVSTA FAVSTINA, bare-headed and draped bust, right.
Rev: PIETAS AVG S C, Pietas, veiled, draped, standing left, dropping incense out of right hand over lighted 'candelabrum-altar', left, and holding box in left hand.
Refs: RIC 1146Aa; BMCRE 1442-44; Cohen --; Strack 1241; RCV 4631; Hill UCR 382.

 

Love that Ptolemy, @ValiantKnight
I picked one up last year and thought it was a beast at 38mm and 38g. It is NOTHING compared to yours.

 

Not quite as big... I liked the giant dent in the middle.
I gave it to one of my kids when she was into Percy Jackson books...

 

Thats a big one Valiant, Here's my smaller Ptolemy II diobol:

 

The most vicious case of BD I've ever seen was this guy


It's not much better now, but at least it's no longer green.

 

Thanks all for the comments. An update: as of now, the BD on my drachm still has not returned, despite it having been over a month since treatment. I am fortunate that the BD was not anymore extensive/deeper into the coin.

Great to see some other saved coins! IHO ridding a coin of BD is like giving it a new, clean bill of health (as long it doesn’t return of course!).