Removing Renaissance Wax from ancient coins.

Hello, I'm thinking about removing Renaissance Wax from some of my silver coins I have, they were applied by some sellers I've purchased from and I applied it to some silver coins (Roman & Greek) early on in my collecting but now I have second thoughts about it.

Is there a safe and efficient way to remove the wax on silver coins?



The way I usually apply the wax is to carefully use a heat gun to "bake" the coins, I then use a manual air duster to blow off any dust or specs, apply the way by hand and then finish it with a cloth.
I would still prefer to wax bronze coins for max protection but for silver coins I think I will leave them alone.

 

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Acetone will remove it safely.

 

Thanks, will the silver purity of the coin matter? Asking becuase a few are later Roman coins that have less silver content in them.

 

Nope, acetone has no impact whatsoever in metal content

 

Don’t leave it in there for long if it’s billon. An alternative is heat, and melt the vax off.

 

Alright thanks for the suggestions, I will get some pure acetone for this removal.

 

Ok, what if this was for bronze coins, would pure acetone be too harsh for bronze?

 

A word about acetone: If the coin just happened to have been 'improved' with paint or waxy infill smoother over the pits, you might find out something you really did not want to know if these unnatural materials were to be dissolved. The acetone would do the coin no harm but it might force you to realize that you made a mistake more serious than just Renaissance wax. I suppose it is better to know that you had a coin with a fake patina or expansive repair topped off with the wax but there is no guarantee that anything you do to coins from water on up won't reveal a surprise here and there. How badly do you want to know if that sand patina is thousands of years in the making or Maybelline? Those here who told you acetone would do no harm are right. The harm was done when someone painted on the surface.

 

I’ve

acetone is not an acid or base, or otherwise corrosive to metals. You can totally toss a gold stater or whatever into a shot glass of acetone for a week straight and won’t risk any damage to the coin fabric

 

If you use acetone, make sure it is 100% acetone, not the diluted type. Also use it in a well ventilated space, don't breath the fumes and keep it well removed from any ignition source - it is highly flammable.

 

Very interesting, the silver coins were a success! I think I only left them in there about 15-20 minutes, I spun the glass bowl a few times to agitate the acetone during the process and there seems to be a lot of residue in the mix now (probably the wax that has been taken off the coins). I then put all the coins immediately into a bowl of distilled water and will probably keep them there for a day.

Something interesting happened when I put some of my bronze coins (carthaginian & roman) in the acetone mix and they regained some of their original bronze color! In some areas which were completely black from oxidation, they began to get of the orange/copper color back, did anyone ever experience this? I'm starting to like this, some of the black oxidation is starting to strip and details are becoming more apparent on my bronze coins.

 

Could the black be instead organic deposits? I don’t know acetone to be able to strip away metal oxidation.

 

I’ve had coins covered with black/brown grease & oil that were barely identifiable that overnight acetone cleaned quite well. Not always but some major improvements. Your results will vary, mine do

 

Did the black deposit come off in the acetone or when you rinsed in distilled water? Water is actually an effective solvent for some deposits.

 

Hmm, I guess it really was grime that somehow built up on the coin, becuase acetone shouldn't be removing oxidation like that.

Those areas starting turning copper/bronze color after 1 minute in the acetone for my 4 coins.

Maybe I will take pics of the results tomorrow.

 

So about the bronze coins I just acetone-treated, I recently purchased these bronze shekels but I don't think I ever noticed these areas before as they're minimal and not too apparent, not sure if this is BD or verdigris. I've tried using my finger nails and a tooth pick to try and get the green off but it doesn't seem to come off.



If it eventually turns out to be BD, can I just let soak in distilled water or just use a heat gun to remove any moisture from the coin and that would do the trick? I'm planning to wax these coins eventually with RW.

 

Your coin looks as if it has typical hard green deposits. I have many ancients with these spots. I don't think that is bronze disease. Active bronze disease is a very pale green to almost white powdery deposit that can be scratched off in most instances with a finger nail. The hard green deposits are not chemically active and they are usually hard as cement, so they don't remove easily.

I suggest that you set the coin aside and keep an eye on it. If the green area show any change, developing powdery areas, then the coin needs to be treated for bronze disease, since the corrosive process will eat into the coin.

There is a chemical for bronze disease, sodium sesquicarbonate, which will neutralize the corrosive process. The down side is that this chemical also, if the coin soaks for many days, will remove most or all of the patina as well. This measure should only be taken with coins with confirmed bronze disease.

Here's a coin that spent several weeks in a sodium sesquicarbonate (washing soda) bath. This Turkoman AE dirham had a bad case of bronze disease on the reverse in a depression created by a flan lamination. Copper oxide deposits built up over the centuries, trapping moisture as well. To save the coin, I had soak the coin and remove it from time to time to scrape away the acidic deposit. Now, the coin is apparently free of the problem, but at a cost.



The original patina has been stripped away. The lamination, the site of the bronze disease development is on the reverse, a roughly rectangular pit. It seems that the flan had some internal weak spots, which resulted in the crack leading to the lamination, where the metal either separated from the flan during the striking, or afterwards during circulation.

 

The distilled water often is not a good idea, especially if it is a copper based coin . The reason modern coin collector use acetone as the final rinse before air drying, is that it will carry water molecules with it as it evaporates. Water on metal is always problematic. IMO, Jim

 

Thanks, but I don't think trapped water is too much of an issue in my case since I normally will use a heat gun to bake the coin until it is pretty hot to the touch but I definitely won't overdo to where it will damage the coin.

 

Man that one is rough, thanks a lot for the info on the sodium sesquicarbonate. Yeah so far it only looks like dark green oxidation on the shekels, if I'm wrong then the BD process is still in the early stages and I can fix the problem right away! These shekels weren't too expensive but imagine a nice sharp Sesertius with unexpected BD, that would really suck.