Coin Cleaning Help

Discussion in 'Ancient Coins' started by nicholasz219, Jul 24, 2017.

  1. nicholasz219

    nicholasz219 Well-Known Member

    Hello All,

    I spent about $20 to buy a lot of 20 ancient bronze coins. They are all Roman from what I can tell. All I have done is soak these coins in distilled water, changing once a week for about a month. I gave a little scrub with a toothbrush to knock off loose dirt and used the edge of a plastic spoon to see what may be loose.

    I have seen some tools on eBay and from other coin dealers. Are any of these tools worth my time? I included some pictures below to give you an idea of what I am dealing with. I know that none of these coins are worth any money whatsoever. It is more of the idea of working on these coins that was appealing to me.

    Thanks,

    4961 (1) 4962.jpg 4955 (1) 4956 (1).jpg 4963 4964.jpg 4965 4966 (1).jpg 4973 4974.jpg
     
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  3. Bing

    Bing Illegitimi non carborundum Supporter

    I don't clean coins at all since I am no good at it. But it looks like a couple of your coins may have bronze decease. Numbers 1, 2 and 5. If the green comes off fairly easily, you will need to treat them before any more damage is done.
     
    Last edited: Jul 24, 2017
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  4. David@PCC

    David@PCC allcoinage.com

    1 & 2 have almost no detail and no amount of cleaning will help, sorry. If you clean 3 or 4 all detail will be lost and they will look like 1 & 2, leave them alone. The only one that may clean up is the last one which is probably an interesting provincial, but may also be damaged by cleaning?
     
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  5. nicholasz219

    nicholasz219 Well-Known Member

    What is the treatment for bronze disease?

    I wasn't sure if I should try a harder brush of some sort or not. I don't want to ruin anything if there is something under the crud but I also don't want to just leave coins to rot either if there is hope. Considering I wouldn't know what to do with coins I can't identify is it worth trying for practice if anything?
     
  6. Curtisimo

    Curtisimo the Great(ish)

    I kind of like the uncleaned look of #3 and #4.

    Woukd soaking #5 in distilled water be likely to cause damage?
     
  7. Kentucky

    Kentucky Supporter! Supporter

    Take a toothbrush and use a wire cutter or some such to clip the bristles until they are half length. This gives a stiffer brush that has no possibility of scratching. A copper or brass brush may be used judiciously to remove some of the harder stuff and a dental pick can be used for fine work. At this stage for these coins, putting some detergent in the water wouldn't hurt either. The third one is interesting with the quadriga on the back.
     
  8. chrsmat71

    chrsmat71 I LIKE TURTLES!

    There isn't much you can do to 1 or 2. I have a feeling that more aggressive cleaning may make 3 and 4 look worse, the dirt is kind of highlighting the details.

    The last one is kind of an interesting provincial. Do you know what it is by any chance?
     
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  9. LaCointessa

    LaCointessa Well-Known Member

    Hi everybody!

    I haven't been on much recently. I've been busy figuring out how to clean my crusty ancient coins.

    Try soaking in acetone (at Walgreen's for less than 5 bucks) for about 12 hours. From there, the coin goes directly into warm water (distilled is good) and sits for about a half hour. Take a gentle soap (I've been using Neutragena - it's a transparent soap. I do not own stock in the company) and tooth brushes and brush coin gently in one direction (not back and forth) from center of coin outward. I brush the coin under running water to flush away the grime as soon as it is loosened. Then when I can see some progress, I pat it dry with a soft towel or t-shirt.

    I use a little tuft of fine steel wool wrapped around the pointy tip of a chop stick and around both ends of a stick used for making kabobs. I use the steel wool tipped sticks dry on the still damp coins after seeing the areas that still have the thickest areas of built-up grime. I always work gently and in one direction rotating the stick and wool so that I am not rubbing the grime right back onto the coin! I change the steel wool on the tip (put it on as if you're making a q-tip). At some point I rub some of the soap on the wool and then use that. I may also dampen the steel wool covered tip just a tiny bit and go very carefully always checking my progress.

    I have been able to keep the chocolate or turquoise patina. On some there is silver showing through. Now, instead of working one coin at a time, I am working several coins at a time in stages. I can not believe the results I am getting and I am very excited. I like doing it. No. I love doing it. I have some reverses I have never seen before and need to start working on my attributions - but I always convince myself that I should start cleaning just a couple more coins first. Also, now, everything I see I evaluate in terms of whether it might be a helpful ancient coin cleaning tool.

    One of these days soon I'll post the most beautiful and interesting ones. I stopped photographing them before cleaning them. Some were so horrible that I never thought I would find anything under there. That's why I started with those coins first and used steel wool on them! The fine steel wool does not damage the coin. I am actually not touching the surface of the coin with it. I'm scraping the surface of the gunk and that allows the edge of the brush to further break into it so the soap can help dissolve it and the water can flush it away.

    I went on way too long. Sorry.
    Hope everyone is well.
     
  10. nicholasz219

    nicholasz219 Well-Known Member

    @LaCointessa: I appreciate your detailed notes. I will be making a trip to Walgreens to pick up some wool and acetone. As it seems to be that at least for numbers one and two there is not much redeeming value in letting them just sit as they are, I will see if I can at least break through the crust on them. If there is no value to them otherwise, I might as well practice on removing grime.

    @chrsmat71: I think this is a Roman provincial for sure. From the outline of the head, I would say somewhere in the Domitian - Trajan era. The reverse appears to be Zeus seated left, holding patera in right outstretched hand and a scepter standing in this left. The problem is that I can only see about as much of the legends in person as you guys can see in the picture. I thought it might be Bruzos but then that doesn't explain the x in the legend behind Zeus. The letters there look like BPOnX. I admit I am lost on this because there are just enough letters to get me started then I feel like I go down the wrong road.
     
  11. Pishpash

    Pishpash Well-Known Member

    Can I please offer a word of warning to anyone who is new to cleaning ancients.

    If you are going to use dish soap (in the UK we call it washing up liquid), please use a mild one. I used Fairy "Platinum", a stronger version which is supposed to remove "burned on food" with no extra soaking. Burned the patina straight off.

    Also, if you are new, please don't use metal picks or wire wool or indeed anything metal until you have had some practice. Please stick to wooden picks, you will learn when to get the tougher stuff out.

    Distilled water is best. You can also used de-ionised water, the stuff you top up your car batteries with.

    Really there is no substitute for prolonged soaking. Some coins will clean up very quickly and others take months, and months. There are no shortcuts and if you don't have the patience, you should let someone else do it.
     
  12. nicholasz219

    nicholasz219 Well-Known Member

    I did use wooden picks on all of the coins pictured. They soaked for a good month after the last water change (I spoke incorrectly in OP) so they were in distilled water for about two months total. This is why I am here with this OP. I wasn't sure of what to do with them after having soaked them for so long. I am sure I could let them soak for much longer but if they needed some help to expedite the process I wanted advice from the folks here.
     
  13. Pishpash

    Pishpash Well-Known Member

    Two months is but a nanosecond on the geological and ancient coin cleaning scale. They can take months and months and sometimes years, seriously.

    Re-reading my post, I might have come across as terse. If so, I apologise, I didn't mean it to be. There are people who ask all the right questions, get the correct advice and then go and zap the poor buggers with electrolysis, ending up with a poor scrappy bit of metal that is neither use nor ornament.

    When soaking, put them in a tub of distilled water, put a lid on it, leave the tub where you might walk by it several times a day. When you walk past, give it a shake. You change the water when it becomes cloudy. This may take a couple of hours or days. Don't put coins with suspected bronze disease in the same tub as BD free coins.
     
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  14. nicholasz219

    nicholasz219 Well-Known Member

    @Pishpash: I didn't think you were being terse. I was hoping to just lay out some groundwork of where I am coming from so it didn't seem like I was not giving serious thought to restoring these coins. They were purchased for under $1 each but I still value them and do not want to harm them by any means.

    Also, I kept the bronze diseased coins separated from the others.

    Geologically speaking or even numismatically speaking, two months is a very short time indeed, I agree. In my wife's mind, it is an eternity when she sees four little buckets o' ancients sitting on the counter for two months. Hence my dilemna.
     
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  15. Kentucky

    Kentucky Supporter! Supporter

  16. LaCointessa

    LaCointessa Well-Known Member

    Even I feel annoyed when I see my own plastic containers of coins in various solutions sitting around!! Right now, since I am still experimenting with ways to clean coins, I have three different containers each containing a coin and a different solution at work. Then there is the box of other coin cleaning stuff. I need to finally get rid of the cent rolls I had been collecting before I fell in love with crusty ancients and dedicate that desk and storage area to what I am interested in now.

    Hopefully, later in the week I'll have time to post some of the coins I have cleaned recently as well as some in various stages of cleaning.
     
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  17. Pishpash

    Pishpash Well-Known Member

    Organisation, organisation, organisation, is key.
    Now, if only I could take my own advice, everyone in the house would be happy :D
     
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  18. LaCointessa

    LaCointessa Well-Known Member

    Hi again.

    I promised to show what I have been doing with my crusty and grimy ancient coins.

    The first photograph is of still completely uncleaned coins that look just like the partially and almost completely cleaned coins below before I started working on them. The coins in the top photo are NOT the same coins you see cleaned and partially cleaned in the rest of the post. I did not think I would find anything underneath worth photographing since these coins I started with were the most horrible in the bunch. I haven't touched the crusty 'good ones' yet. Figured I would practice on these. I'm glad I did; but still, I do have regrets, as you'll see below.


    Photo of completely uncleaned untouched crusty ancient coins
    Uncleaned crusty coins.JPG

    You can get a sense of how horrible the coins were from the photograph showing partially cleaned coins. These are coins I have worked on for 20 - 30 minutes (after acetone soak and then warm water bath in the way I described in an earlier post in this thread).
    I have about 10 other coins in this condition.

    (partially cleaned ancient coins)
    partially cleaned obverses.JPG

    (reverses of the above coins) - the bottom left is upside down and too clockwise. The surface is not scratched) I have not begun to clean the top left or middle coin reverse yet.
    partially cleaned reverses.JPG


    Finally, below you can see almost completely cleaned coins. I stopped because I am not sure what, if anything, I need to do to make them look better. I do not want to ruin them.
    almost all cleaned ready for attribution.JPG

    Here are the reverses of the almost completely cleaned coins. The one at the bottom left is not in great shape.
    almost all cleaned reverses ready for attribution.JPG

    Now I will work on the attributions and when I'm done I'll take good photographs of them and post them. This post is just to give an idea what I have been doing with my crusty ancients.

    One other thing: Below you see a sad example of a ruined coin - one I am extremely unhappy about. This is what a strong chemical coin cleaning liquid can do to a coin if you leave it too long. This coin looked like the others when I started with it. The edge was completely rounded and filled in with gunk. When I saw what appears to be notching around the rim I wanted to immediately consult @TIFF. I suspected I might be looking at one of those serrate coins. I've been really wanting one - but if this is one - it is totally totaled!

    SerrateObv.JPG

    Here's the reverse. Gee whiz! Call me crazy but I think I see a fallen horseman there.
    SerrateRev.JPG

    I promise better photographs next time!
    Thanks.
    Good night.
     
    Last edited: Aug 2, 2017
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  19. red_spork

    red_spork Triumvir monetalis

    I don't believe this coin is a serrate of any sort, just a very rough "fel temp" fallen horseman so while it is ruined, don't fret too much because this is probably the best type to ruin and learn on if you're going to.
     
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  20. LaCointessa

    LaCointessa Well-Known Member

    Whew! Thanks a lot @red_spork. And I was reading that the serrates usually have approximately 20 'cuts' going around. Since my coin would seem to have more than 20, I was pretty much almost decided it was 'not a serrate.' Thanks again, for weighing in (and I do feel better).
     
    Last edited: Aug 2, 2017
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  21. dougsmit

    dougsmit Member

    Again, for the record, coin cleaning as described above is a fun passtime for those who enjoy it and stress producing for those who do not. It is not a way to build a collection of ancient coins. After you figure in the cost of chemicals etc. those cheap uncleaned coins are no cheaper than low end professionally cleaned coins. Pro-cleaners start with an ability to look at a coin and determine two very important things. First, is there a worthwhile coin under that mess? Second, what process will best expose whatever is hidden below. Doctors have terms like triage and treatment to apply resources effectively. Coin cleaners need to apply similar skills. Not every old coin can be restored to its former glory and not every patient needs open heart surgery. We have a couple members who are skilled at cleaning AND knowing when not to clean.

    My hobbies are collecting coins and photographing them. If your hobby is cleaning the hopeless, enjoy.
     
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