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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;ZoidMeister, post: 4991333, member: 114169&quot;]What do you do, when the UNTHINKABLE happens . . . . . . . </p><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: center">[ATTACH=full]1198915[/ATTACH] </p> <p style="text-align: center"><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>So, you have this really nice, fairly clean coin, token, or medal, but it&#039;s got a small bit of smoodge on it.&nbsp; It has a nice matte finish on it, so you have to be really careful NOT to compromise the finish.&nbsp; To get the smoodge off, you know you can take care of that with a little trip to the Acetone Spa.</p><p><br /></p><p>You carefully lower it in for a few minutes . . . . but wait, you have just used the little wooden paddle you use to extract said coin, token or medal in a different solution.&nbsp; You don&#039;t want to &quot;cross pollenate&quot; the chemicals, so you grab a little brass spudge tool you have lying around.</p><p><br /></p><p>It&#039;s not as wide, but it&#039;ll do, right?</p><p><br /></p><p>Wrong!&nbsp; The spudge tool is somewhat chrome plated.&nbsp; It has a somewhat hard edge, and in a moment of idiocracy, the tool slips, the planchet slides across it&#039;s edge, and&nbsp; . . . . . . . . </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: center">[ATTACH=full]1198914[/ATTACH] </p> <p style="text-align: center"><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>I mean, how do you recover from something like this?&nbsp; After the screaming, swearing, and use of some &quot;perfectly good English,&quot; you calm down and try to weigh your options.</p><p><br /></p><p>That&#039;s when lessons learned from the &quot;CircCam&quot; discussions come to mind.</p><p><br /></p><p><b><i>If life gives you lemons . . . . . . screw it, I hate lemon-aide, give me some Mike&#039;s Hard Lemon-aide to get through this . . . . . . .</i></b></p><p><b><i><br /></i></b></p><p>So my only option left, other than to toss it out or buy a new one (which I did anyway), is to try give this piece a circulated cameo conversion.</p><p><br /></p><p>I therefore tossed this medal into my pocket with about 6 bucks of clad quarters, dimes, and nickels.&nbsp; I was looking for an &quot;accelerated&quot; aging process.&nbsp; And I am getting the results I was looking for.</p><p><br /></p><p>Here it is after almost one week of pocket carry.</p><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: center"><br /></p> <p style="text-align: center">[ATTACH=full]1198921[/ATTACH] </p> <p style="text-align: center"><br /></p> <p style="text-align: center">[ATTACH=full]1198922[/ATTACH] </p> <p style="text-align: center"><br /></p> <p style="text-align: center"><br /></p> <p style="text-align: center">&nbsp;</p> <p style="text-align: center"><br /></p><p>The matte finish is wearing down nicely.&nbsp; The scratch above does not penetrate deeply into the surface, but just breaks the matte finish away.&nbsp; High points on the planchet are getting a nice polish.</p><p><br /></p><p>It&#039;s better, but the original gouge is still visible and a couple new ones have appeared.</p><p><br /></p><p>Back into the pocket it goes . . . . . . . .</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>About 2.5 weeks into pocket carry (and one night buried in a flower pot in my backyard) and this bad boy is really starting to take on the appearance I was hoping for.</p><p><br /></p><p>The fields are now nicely lightened.&nbsp; The areas around raised elements are starting to darken.&nbsp; High points are nicely polished.&nbsp; A few &quot;bag marks&quot; and additional scratches all lead to the newfound character of this piece.</p><p><br /></p><p>Here is how it looks after 2.5 weeks . . . . . .</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: center">[ATTACH=full]1198918[/ATTACH] </p> <p style="text-align: center"><br /></p> <p style="text-align: center">[ATTACH=full]1198919[/ATTACH] </p> <p style="text-align: center"><br /></p> <p style="text-align: center"><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>The fields on the reverse need a LOT more work.&nbsp; The complexity of the design has the high points &quot;protecting&quot; the fields.&nbsp; I need the lettering to get a bit more evenly polished to make them readable.</p><p><br /></p><p>All in all, I think another month of pocket carry will get this &quot;once damaged&quot; piece back to a respectable, but different than original, finish.</p><p><br /></p><p>Z[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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