Too much cleaning?

Thank you all. your posts were great help.
Just one more question: in a coin like this one:


when i look closely at it i can see some lettering and some image on the reverse side. as i understand its all patine and i cant clean it any more because it will damage the coin.
So leave him as he is?

 

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I have cleaned lots of coins - about 250 so far, and rarely do I get very good results. I have had some success removing dark crud that covered a patinated coin. The challenge is knowing when to stop. I would say by the time you can make out the legend on the obverse and the reverse and when the portrait and reverse type is visible. Anyway it can be fun to find something cool underneath the crud. I don't have any suggestions as how to remove severe encrustations. I tried the olive oil soak method but this wasn't very effective on the bad ones. I also tried liquid descaler which turned the coins into coppery slugs, sometimes removing delicate features, especially on late roman bronze coins which were made of a poorer quality metal than you get in earlier Imperial issues and Provincial roman coins.

Anyway, welcome to the field of collecting ancients. Here are some that I have mostly cleaned up, or at least have stopped trying.