Hieronymus of Syracuse - restoration of a valuable coin

Since you offered advice what would you recommend for this tetradrachm; it is almost completely black:

24 x 26 mm, 14.838 g
RPC I 4004

 

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Thanks very much for your confirmation and advice Roerbakmix. When I bought this denarius back in 2016 I thought I had a bargain.. well now I know why other (wiser) buyers stayed away. Well better late than never.

Like you noted it looks like someone already tried to clean the horn silver mechanically with less than stellar results... poor Mars has had his lower thigh chipped away. Not too optimistic that chemical cleaning will do much.. but since it's been half cleaned already I guess there's no harm.

 

Nice job @Roerbakmix ! That coin cleaned up very nice!

Here's my cleaned coin (shown before), with you help.

Before:

After:

 

Bit late, but this is also most likely horn silver. I think the denarius of @Limes posted after your coin must have looked similar prior to cleaning (he bought it partly cleaned). Yours would be a bit difficult to treat, but certainly not impossible. It is hard to tell how smooth the surfaces are beneath the horn silver, so careful cleaning and checking at short intervals is warranted.

@Limes, your denarius improved! I would still continu though, and perhaps make a stronger solution: since it improved, there is no reason not to make a very strong solution (e.g. two table spoons in 50 ml of water, heated to boiling point) and drop it in.