Help Retoning A Cleaned 1838 VF Large Cent!

You can retone it this way, but be prepared to leave it there for quite some time. Depending on how it was cleaned, it could take 1-3 months, or more. It will be faster if the coin is in an old paper envelope (pre 70s.)

And in the end it'd still be cleaned, and scratched, just darker. There's also no guarantee it would retone evenly -- it could end up as a blotchy red-brown mess, pure dark brown, or anything in between.

If all you want is to get it dark, sulfur compounded with petrolatum will do the trick faster. The sulfur powder (get the pure stuff) can be had from Amazon for a few dollars, and you can compound it with clear, unscented/unmedicated Vaseline from a drug store, using a mortar & pestle or similar non-metal item. You may have to experiment with the ratio of sulfur:petrolatum to get the right results. Too much sulfur will turn it almost gray-black, not enough and it will be a dull golden brown with gray tones. Of course, this is considered alteration of the coin's surfaces, but since you already know that it's cleaned, you're not really losing anything to try it. A bit of Googling will help you figure this out.

Hope that helps you :)

In addition to being cleaned, the surfaces have been corroded. So, if you play around with it, it shouldn't hurt the value. It was probably acidized to remove the corrosion.