always under microscope..best way to clean roman bronze.. http://www.romanorum.com/docs/A Method for cleaning ancient coins. Romanorum.com.pdf
Nice find! I'm just curious, do you keep your finds or do you sell them to dealers, collectors, etc? This is not an offer to buy. I was just curious in general.
l mostly sell everything l find..there was a couple of coins which l was really "connected" like- Q.CAECILIUS MATELLUS PIUS SCIPIO republican denarius and OCTAVIAN denarius of Cyrene mint, with open hand on obverse..but, the offer of one dealer was too good..l collect roman bricks with animal foot prints on it..
What a specific niche! Not just bricks... Roman bricks. Not just Roman bricks, Roman bricks with animal foot prints .
The link galba68 provided is wonderful but omitted emphasis on one thing needed to be a coin cleaner. Patience. Buckets full of patience. I am sure that the recent increases in bronze disease coins is attributable to poor handling of new finds. In the more distant past, I suspect that coins that were not deemed worth marketing were just trashed but now they are washed off and sold to those of us who hope we can save them all. The article mentions that the time to clean a common LRB would greatly exceed the value of the coin but my patience level makes it questionable on many better coins. I do believe everyone needs a stereoscopic microscope but I use mine for fun and investigating what someone else did to the coins rather than cleaning them myself.
I no longer clean LRB's as it can be tedious and not exactly worth one's while to "save" coins that might be worth $10 at best. Great find @galba68 !
Any recommendations on microscopes? Do these ones with the lcd screens work as well as the traditional models?
PREMIERE BRAND SMJ-02 STEREO MICROSCOPE..from GORILLA SCIENTIFIC.COM..l know, my friend try, and he was not happy with lcd screens.. http://www.romanorum.com/docs/A Method for cleaning ancient coins. Romanorum.com.pdf
There are many, many brands an models of stereo microscopes. eBay is full of options. I doubt you will find the exact model I bought a decade ago or the one shown in galba68's link but they have in common the general shape and direct view (not LED) which I find pleasing. I see several scopes being sold on eBay that are NOT what you want. Stereoscopic microscopes give a 3D view delivering a different angle view to each eye. You want that. There are Binocular scopes that have two eyepieces hooked up to just one objective that do not give 3D. You don't want that. There are even a few items being sold that are listed as monocular stereo. You can not be both at the same time. There are also some perfectly goo stereo microscopes that have a third tube on which you can attach a camera and record a 2D image while viewing 3D through the scope. I know the link recommends a 20x scope for cleanig but I use mine mostly for viewing and appreciate having a weaker 10x option that allows you to see more of the coin. Mine is 10x and 30x with rotating 1x ad 3x objective pairs and 10x eyepieces. I'm sorry I can not provide a link to exactly what I would recommend but suspect that there are may that will do as well as the one I have.
Also some binocular scopes have individual adjustments for eye spacing ( not everyone has the same distance between their pupil center) like the scope Doug shows~ notice the off center structures the eyepieces are attached to, you can rotate them to adjust separation. Also look for one eyetube to be adjustable so that if one eye is a different prescription, you can adjust one so it focuses with the other, Then you just focus with acuity until someone else uses it Jim
Yes, when I took that one, all my coins were at the bank box so all I had at home was things like that.
You really did an amazing job on the coins you listed in your cleaning instructions. As a newbie to this thank you for posting.
