Cleaned Coins

latman, how much did you put in of each ingredient?

and did you wrap it up in alfoil? in boiling water

Not really an exact science. A spoonful of baking powder, a splash of salt and some scrunched up foil just sitting in the pot.

And the vinegar and salt thing I probably let go too long. Later dated coins without too much toning cleaned up reasonably well, but earlier dates with more tone I left in the solution longer which seemed to damage the surface a little bit. Gave an unnatural look.

What it all means is that you can buy a seemingly nice coin that may have been cleaned very recently without knowing it. I dare say anyone would have a hard time telling the '59 was cleaned.

I am keeping some of these cleaned coins stored away to see what the long term result will be.

Tonight I will do the ammonia bath to see what happens. I will also do another one in baking powder with before and after pics to see if anyone can tell it has been cleaned (apart from being cleaner)

how long did you leave the gold one and what did you dowhen you took it out?

yeh. It's not one I really like

Baking powder one didn't work.

I think my camera is a dud for photographing coins. Couldn't get true colour representation on any of these pics. The "gold" ones are a really subdued but definite gold colour, the after ammonia coins are actually very silver again.

Think I need to spend more time in the photography section.

I have tried absolutely everything! I even used silvo, brasso and steel-wool on some of them. I wanted to get a really good idea of the results of cleaning on coins, so I did all of the very, very bad things to them that I could think of!

I've cooked 'em, cleaned 'em, whizzed 'em, toned 'em, and then un-toned 'em! I am now quite familiar with how a coin that is un-altered should look, and how it shouldn't look.

But whatever you do, don't do it on a coin that you want to keep! Only ever experiment on damaged or worthless coins. Good luck.

Make sure there are no keepers or scarce dates in among them first. I also used lots of different methods of artificial toning, as I sometimes have difficulty deciding if a coin has natural or artificial toning.

I tried the methods listed here: http://www.coinsite.com/content/ori...p0000080.htm so that I could really study the end results. I use a really good magnifying glass and took photos of the coins before and after, and then I use them to compare to coins that I'm thinking of purchasing.

But, again, only use these methods for experimentation and for education, and don't use good coins!

Thanks latman, it came on Thursday