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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;dougsmit, post: 7939675, member: 19463&quot;]While I am personally of the opinion that whoever did that to those Luristan swords should be run through with one of them, I can point out the difference between coins and swords.&nbsp; Coins have a very fine surface detail that will extend down into the coin a small fraction of a millimeter.&nbsp; A weapon may have some decorative inscribing but most are relatively plain.&nbsp; Removing that surface from the sword made it a tiny bit thinner but still a sword.&nbsp; Removing the same amount of metal from a coin will eliminate most or all of the detail dropping the &#039;grade&#039; from, let&#039;s say, EF to G if not turning it into a slick slug.&nbsp; When we clean, we remove.&nbsp; The skill of cleaning to be developed is learning the difference between dirt on top of the coin and corrosion that has eaten into and modified that original surface.&nbsp; To be successful, cleaning needs to stop before it reaches that original surface.&nbsp; When coins were struck the surface of the blank was compressed compacting it compared to the center part of the coin.&nbsp; This was made even worse when &#039;silver&#039; coins reached a place where the silver was alloyed over 50% with base metals.&nbsp; You Elagabalus is probably about 50% silver.&nbsp; Many mints capitalized on this fact by soaking blanks in an acid the would dissolve some of the surface copper leaving a bit of a spongy surface that was higher grade silver in comparison to the center of the coin.&nbsp; When struck with the die, this sponge compressed into a thin,&nbsp; relatively high silver content skin over the more debased core. If you clean off that skin, you do major damage to the coin detail.&nbsp; There is no process that reverses the corrosion retaining the shape that was there before it corroded.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>Certainly we suggest learning on lesser coins.&nbsp; However it is really hard to find prime candidates to clean because the people who find these coins tend to sell them to wholesalers who are master at deciding which ones are worth cleaning and which to sell to amateurs that want to play coin restorer.&nbsp; When you do find truly uncleaned and unsorted coins, they may not be cheap.&nbsp; Uncleaned coins are like scratch off lottery tickets.&nbsp; Most lose their value when scratched because everyone is hoping they got the one in a million that pays off big time.&nbsp; You might find cleaning fun but it is not the way to get great looking (let alone shiny) coins for the collection. Most of us have cleaned some coins at some point.&nbsp; Most of us have lowered the value of those coins.&nbsp; Cleaning is a separate hobby.&nbsp; My related hobby is coin photography.&nbsp; I destroy fewer coins when taking their pictures. So, if you start with really cheap, really bad coins and make a 1% improvement in them, great.&nbsp; Just do not expect to wash away the dirt and find a sparkling gem below.&nbsp; If it were that easy, the first guy in the chain of custody since that coin left the ground would have cleaned it himself.&nbsp; If you buy a hundred &#039;cleaners&#039;, you might find 10% that you can improve and 2% that you can make half decent.&nbsp; Sparkling bright and original surfaces are like lottery tickets that had all the right numbers. Some of the coins you have shown here are types worth several hundred or thousand dollars in perfect condition.&nbsp; The ones you have are not reversible but several have been half decent &#039;as-is&#039;.&nbsp; After you have handled a few hundred thousand coins, you might develop the knack of telling which you can improve and which you will sell off to someone who knows less than you do.&nbsp; That is not my hobby.&nbsp; Perhaps it will be yours. Meanwhile you will need a lot of practice.&nbsp; Start with cheap coins.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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