Uncleaned Lots

I was very enthusiastic to try this also... so I bought a lot off ebay...

There was one coin there that showed some potential (an Alex III bronze, with club and quiver) but despite me only using distilled water the patina was stripped away. The explanation was it was an over cleaned coin, caked in some mud and introduced to the lot. The other 19 coins yielded perhaps 6 identifiable coins...none of which was worthy of making it to my collection.

The only really fun discovery was how helpful the people in the Ancients section are when it comes to attribution and identification.

As far as I know the Vcoins dealers don't really trade in uncleaned lots. Which means braving the wild west that is ebay.

Hopefully someone more experienced in this field might be able to recommend a seller to you.

Do let us know how you get on, it is an interesting process and something I would recommend to all ancient collectors, but after having tried it I don't really think it is for me.

Having that kind of background myself, I resonate. That said, I hope you won't mind a couple of suggestions.

Many people gravitate to uncleaned coins because they are cheap and they reason that if they mess it up, not much is lost. But a budding archaeological conservator cannot use that rationale. Your goal is to reclaim material lost by time, and for that the cleaning process needs to be more than just trial and error.

1. Before you try to tackle conservation of uncleaned coins, I would suggest you become familiar with the coin designs for the kind of material you intend to work on. Pictures are one thing, but cleaning involves excavating the relief of a coin, and that takes some experience and a bit of reference material to guide you.

Buy a starter lot, but study it before you try to clean anything.

2. Most lots of uncleaned coins have a fair number of Late Roman Bronze coins in them, sometimes fully encrusted over a surface rich in detail but not readily accessible. See what you can recognize in your starter lot before you have attempted to clean anything. It will help to become familiar with the details of the known "types" of LRB coins, not only for the iconography but also for the epigraphy. What are the inscriptions and their letter forms? Learning how to "read" an ancient is critical to recognizing what appears only in fragments.

3. This knowledge will not come overnight, but keep looking at your starter lot until you have some sense of forms below the encrustation. Before you use tools and chemicals on your coins, see what you can do with just your fingers and body fluids. You would be amazed at how much conservation is just rubbing. Don't be too quick to decide to give the coins a bath in distilled water or olive oil, two common cleaners, until you have some idea of what to expect from that. For example: imagine one of your uncleaned coins. Does the encrustation darken when you work it between your thumb and forefinger? What then would be a likely outcome if you soaked it in olive oil for a week? If that change takes place, will it make the cleaning task easier or more difficult?

As an archeologist you know how to approach a task in layers. That skill should be applied to cleaning your "hoard."

Once you have a coin cleaned up, do you have a long term conservation plan for it? Do you stick it in a flip and forget it? Are you familiar with Renaissance Wax and how to use it?

I recommend building a small reference collection of readable material (not necessarily prime coins) before taking the plunge into the conservation of uncleaned coins. But have a starter lot you got off of ebay as a teaser and a goal, at which you look but do not touch until you can't stop yourself.

My 2 folles worth.

Here are some of the lots I have won, for reference:

1) http://www.ebay.com/itm/LOT-OF-20-A...9431?txnId=0

This one was sold by a collector or inheritor, NOT a dealer. What tipped me off was the number of radiates (spiky crowned portraits) in the lot, the small coin inscribed with "S C" (a quadrans of Claudius), and the larger sestertius. None of these coins needed cleaning, but took a lot of very enjoyable time to identify.

2) http://www.ebay.com/itm/Lot-of-72-A...1342?txnId=0

This one was the only truly uncleaned lot, and was probably worth much less than I paid for it. About half of the coins are in too rough of shape for me to clean at my skill level, but plenty were just fine with no cleaning. This had some larger coins as well; some identifiable, others not. Notable coins from this lot were a Moesia provincial of Philip the Arab (large green coin at the top), AE of Julia Domna (large pitted one at the left), and some more common coins in good shape.

3) http://www.ebay.com/itm/Lot-of-20-U...9978?txnId=0

Jury is still out on whether this one was a steal or a rip-off. I bought it solely for the challenge of identifying some improperly cleaned coins, and because only a couple are "late roman bronze" types.

I would say that regardless of whether you shop on ebay or elsewhere, there are four types of sellers you will encounter when buying a lot of coins:

1) Dealers and collectors who are upfront and selling to make a profit.

2) Same as 1) but selling culls to reduce costs. These are usually listed as such.

3) Collectors or inheritor who have no idea what they have

4) Scam artists. I am sure you are familiar with the "unsearched roll" scam as a US Classics collector. Same theory applies--never bid on a lot from a successful seller if it seems too good to be true.