I picked up a humble Athenian tetradrachm from a friend yesterday. He is a true master when it comes to cleaning coins. Like most he does not reveal his secrets, but he did say he does not clean coins 'wet', so no chemicals, juices, etc. Just manual cleaning. Here is the before and after. I neglected to ask him how long it took!
seems like a lot of the higher points got flattened, and the details on the obverse became softened. I am on the fence here, I dont know what I like better.
Looks amazing to me. You could not see the stamp on the cheek in the uncleaned state. Many of us are or were collectors of US or modern coins and we tend to take our prejudices of "never clean a coin or you'll ruin it" with us, (myself included). But as was said before, all ancient coins on the market by necessity have been or need to be cleaned. I think your coin proves this thought. Tooling is a different matter. I must admit, I find it difficult at times determining if a coin has been tooled or not. A very respected numismatist/dealer once told me "some people label an over cleaned coin as a tooled one". Where do you draw the line? I really don't know even after decades of collecting. Anyway, I think your cleaned coin is gorgeous.
I think the cleaner did a great job though admittedly I'm very surprised with his technique. The cleaners I know(at least those I've discussed techniques with) seem to all do "wet". I don't buy many coins that need cleaning but I purchased this one because it was probably the only example of the type I'd ever be able to afford. It turned out much better than I expected though it took 4 months of cleaning by a very good cleaner I know:
