In theory heat may loosen up some things, and agitation should keep 'new' water flowing over the coins, so both should help. Whether the difference would be noticeable I have no idea. Neither of these would damage a coin in any way I can imagine unless you really crank up the agitator.
The sonicator I could see doing some damage to the parts of the coins touching the bottom of the machine or any coins running against each other. It might be effective in short bursts though. My advice would be to go buy one of those cheap vibrating toothbrushes and stick it next to a coin in a bath of water and see if that does anything.
chuy1530 - that's not a bad idea about the vibrating toothbrush...
I would put the coins on some sort of plastic base within the sonicator, and clear of adjacent coins, so there was no metal on metal contact. Or another idea I some somewhere was to have the coins individually hanging in the sonicator water bath within something akin to a tea bag.
pishpash - the sonicator I bought is a lab-grade one, so it should be fairly durable. We'll see how it works when I actually receive it though.
I figured the lab shaker couldn't be worse than just soaking in distilled water, and might be a bit quicker. I have some that are nearly a year old by now that have been soaking...they're very slowly improving, but at least to date, I haven't done much else other than rub them with my fingers for a bit every now and then. I've been trying to be as gentle as possible on these.
I figured the 3, now 4 variations I can try to experiment with are: -sonication/cavitation -constant agitation/lab shaker -heat -and now radiation based on chrsmat's post
I have to say, I really enjoy the idea of buying uncleaned ancient coins - it's almost like a bit of a treasure hunt...
I haven't cleaned coins for sometime now but when I did I used a ultrasonic machine in the process. In conjunction with soaking in olive oil I would run the coins in the heated ultrasonic machine. The results were excellent.
My ultrasonic is supposed to be for jewellery and it came with a plastic basket. I also have plastic baskets that came in jewellery dips.
By the way, I have used an electronic toothbrush for cleaning coins that have been in soak, and it appears to be no better than a normal toothbrush. Never thought of it as an agitator. Might be a bit heavy on the battery though.
I have been down this road and the four BEST things for cleaning 'uncleaned' coins are:- 1/- 'Demineralized Water' (PishPash) and 2/- 'Olive Oil' (Medieval) They are undoubtedly the two BEST (safest) commercial cleaning agents for 'uncleaned' coins. You can add to that 3/- 'Picking' at the 'crud' with a wooden (Bamboo) pick (PishPash) and 4/- plenty of 'Patience' (Medieval)
I have also used a jewellery 'ultrasonic' cleaner which (in theory) would be excellent, however I have noticed no appreciable assistance in cleaning old coins when using this method.
hah very nice...! Ok thanks guys...I have a sonicator on its way already, so I'll try that out. I just found someone who can sell me a relatively cheap lab shaker/incubator, so I might try that as well. I guess that I can always resell it if it doesn't do much!
Yeah that's a very good idea. I'm going to approach this with the 'scientific method', and see what happens. As long as the encrustation/dirt is composed of different material than the coin and its patina, you would think that there would be some sort of way of speed up the cleaning process without harming the coin and patina.
OK, you have fun with that. See if you come to the conclusion that at the end of the day, stick 'em in a tub with distilled water, change when it becomes cloudy, periodic brushing with a cheap cut down toothbtush and occasional picking gets you there any faster :)
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Posted 12/31/2014 1:14 pm
