I finally found the time to clean some of my uncleaned ancient coins. These have been sitting in distilled water since late April, so the soft dirt was pretty easy to remove. I removed much of the outer layer of dirt on this coin, and there's these spots of a reddish-brown encrustation on it. I don't know what it is, or whether or not it's safe to clean. If I can get the coin attributed without going after them (which I probably can) I will likely leave them alone. For some reason I just have two photos of the reverse, I'll change it this evening when I get back to my dorm. Also, I have another coin (I will update later with pictures) which was heavily encrusted with just packed dirt. It was a bit difficult to begin, but once I got a foothold I could chip away. Many coins that I thought were slugs were just packed with dirt! This was a joyful revelation, and I got to work digging out the coins from their crusty prisons. I found one of two victories holding wreaths, and I looked for it on Tesorillo.com, my main attribution source, and didn't find anything. I have one with a wonderful green patina, but little design left on it. Maybe enough for an expert to attribute, which I am not. I have a couple more that I've been chipping away at, one seems to have a horse, one seems to be another two victories, one with two soldiers holding standards, and so on. Pretty common stuff, but it's good to finally get results. I have been using MS-70 to encourage some of the harder stuff to fall off the coin, but other than that I've just been using a pick and determination. I've learned a lot about the types of dirt that I will encounter and when to stop. I've not yet gotten around to cleaning legends, which is quite tedious, but I'm much more confident in my abilities. I do have some slugs, unfortunately, and one coin that looks like the aftermath of a bombing run. Anyway, the fun has begun and the results are already better than I could have hoped.
Nice focus Noah. I don't like slugs so I work on them from time to time. I work at them until I can recognize the coin. Then I go on-line and print a blown up photo of a reference coin to use as a guideline as I continue works. If you can get some 40 Volume Peroxide it works well on stubborn crud. Here is a large Hadrian that started out as a slug. Worked on it for a long time.
