How To (Or Even If) To Clean A Gold Coin

to the CCF!

Good first try, but would be better if you had photos with the whole coin.

From what I can see, you may have a replica, not a real coin (are you sure it is gold?)

It looks a lot like "pirate treasure" replicas that have been posted here before, even recently. Same shape and everything. Links:

http://goccf.com/t/401228
http://goccf.com/t/179123

While of course I would prefer the coin to be real and I am biased; I am not yet convinced this is fake and certainly don't think it is a match to the ones from the other links.

I really do appreciate any input; but so far I still think it is gold. It doesn't come out too well, but all the dark spots are sand embedded in coral growth, the coin weighs 27g (kitchen scale) which pretty much matches 8 Escudos. Clearly I am no expert, but the material looks a lot like gold to me.

I now also googled "1705 8 Escudo Replica" and did not find a direct match.

Anything I can do to verify this is gold or not?

Update: I have now found some replica pics online that are a pretty close match

Well thanks everyone for your input and sending me off in the right direction. I was just able to use the chemistry labs scale at my kids school - and the weight came in at 29.37 g, so too heavy.
I also tried a "sound test" which also suggests it is not gold.

Still, not counting the sunburn on my neck, it made for a fun experience finding it, and then researching it. Shame I can't just change my username now ;-)

Thank you all

It's not coral - it's corrosion. These replicas are made of pewter that is then plated with a golden or silvery-coloured coating. Salty sand will corrode one of these "coins" quite quickly. I'd expect a replica to show this much corrosion after about a month or two in the sand, perhaps less if it's been raining a lot.

Finding genuine "pirate gold" coins on a beach is very, very rare. That's because gold is very dense, compared to everything else likely to be in the sand. So any motion of the sand - from wind, waves, footprints, motor vehicles, etc - is likely to see a piece of gold fall down, rather than come up. A solid gold coin or ring dropped onto the sand will immediately fall through at least 5 cm of dry sand, and will only go deeper with time. A genuine gold coin dropped on a beach several hundred years ago would likely be under several metres of sand.

As for finding a replica on a beach, sure, it happens quite often. You went down to the beach to play a "find the treasure" game. Someone else a few months or years earlier did exactly the same thing, only instead of quarters, they used replica pirate coins. The original party never found your coin, but you did.