R.R. Denarius - new aquisition - M.Aemilius

My Scorpion type.

 

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Post egg.....

 

WOW Pish! I learned something! I like how it is a subtle tone.

 

You are going to give @Bing a heart attack!

 

"Elizabeth"

 

I have to agree with @Alegandron....it now has a wonderful subtle toning, much more preferred than the sometimes harshly cleaned 'blast white' examples

 

I like how clear it is on yours that the engraver ran of space but still bothered to carve the right half of Jupiter's thunderbolt outside the dotted border.

 

I have a few 'blast whites' that I may tone down based on what @Pishpash taught me... Thanks Pish!!!

 

You don't need to peel the egg, just squished, but I think it should still be hot/warm. I removed the coin as soon as I noticed a change in the colour. It did not continue to change once out of the bag. If you have a piece of silver, try it on that first. And post the results.

 

I have one in my collection

 

Wow, nice one. Well centered... these ARE hard to get all of the devices.

 

Well, I've seen better out there, but I agree, it's as close as you can get to having everything without spending an arm and a leg. The only thing missing from REX ARETAS is the AS, the SC inscription only has the S present due to probably ancient rust on the die prior to striking or an uneven strike, and the side lettering behind the chariot is very faint probably also due to rust on the ancient die, which is not uncommon. Those Romans loved to use the dies until they were all cracked up and rusted up.

But I don't mind, it's as close to perfection as I can get without spending much. I think I got mine for $175 including shipping. If I wanted any more perfection the price would have quickly escalated to $500+

 

As many others I can pile on with my example (very nice ones along this thread folks). Mine is "scorpionned" though !


M. Aemilius Scaurus and P. Plautius Hypsaeus. Denarius Rome mint, 58 BC
M SCAVR AED CVR In two lines above camel, EX | SC, in exergue REX ARETAS, King Aretas of Nabataea, kneeling right beside a camel, holding an olive branch
P HVPSAEVS AED CVR in two lines, CAPTVM in the right field, C HVPSAE COS PREIVER in two lines, Jupiter driving a quadriga left, holding a thunderbolt
Ref : RCV #379

As most other specimens it lacks some of its devices, but I do prefer a full camel's head than a full REX ARETAS (put the second half of that sentence out of context in a non numismatic conversation and you will probably be given pinks pills by a psychatrist )

Q

 

Yeah, but I am going to take the angle that the scorpions that are in this thread are the only ones in existence. Therefore, ours are all RARE

 

Question: The process said to wipe with cloth after egging. Does this remove some tone? If you wait a few days and wipe with that same cloth, does it remove less? If you wait a few years, is the tone still wipe-able or is there a point where the color is stable. Does the treatment speed or retard additional toning that a coin might experience had there been no egg-celerated toning? The coin here looks to have some brightness on the camel on high points that I wonder if could be from the wiping.

Egg yolk is controlled release sulfur. How is this more effective than using a small amount of gardening sulfur in a plastic bag? I suppose one way of testing such things would be to clean some pre-1964 melter grade silver and run some tests.

I remain concerned about some of my bright silver coins that I have had for years and are not retoning as I would expect any silver item to (think grandma's tableware that tarnished every time it came out for a special meal). I have coins that are retoning and coins that are not. I'm suspicious that some may have been treated with a tarnish retardant. They might even be plated with rhodium or something similar but I have no idea what has happened to coins I have had for decades in the time before they came to me. I bought the coin below from NFA in 1988 and it is just a bright today as it was then. Other coins in the same box tone at least a little. I guarantee grandma's silverware needed detarnishing in a matter of days not years. Explanation?

 

@dougsmit those are excellent questions. I would like the answers as well if there are any chemists hanging around. Like Doug, I have a few bright silver coins that just don't want to tone/tarnish like I might expect.

 

Ditto... some that I have freed / de-slabbed are very "bright".

 

Could it also has something to do with crystallization of the silver or some other chemical change over the centuries?

 

@dougsmit you ask some excellent questions and I have no answers. This is the first time I have tried it and I did not wipe the coin afterwards. Unfortunately, I don't have any silver to experiment with (I would prefer to try it with silver jewellery rather than coins). I will have a root around and see if I can find something. I will start another thread if I have anything to post.

 

I hate blast white ancients. I bought some liver of sulfur and some tone/tarnish removal pads off of Amazon maybe a year ago to experiment. I tried toning a cast fake of Macrinus that I bought for study. Diluted a few drops of the liver of sulfur in a sink of hot water, dipped the coin in and within seconds it started to tone. It will keep toning until it is black even out of the solution so I washed it in a baking soda and water solution to neutralize it. I then took the tarnish removal pad and cleaned off the highlights. It came out great. I'm still afraid to do it on any of my real coins. The results were very good and probably could be better with practice so I'm tempted but it's a slippery slope.

Sorry, no pictures of the coin at the moment but I will share a picture of my bulldog in the dishwasher