Roman Antoninianus - Which Version Is Preferable?

Like most admirers of ancient AR's, I prefer to see some toning rather than over cleaned surfaces. In this case, I do wish that the tonal contrast (on the toned version) between the fields and devices was a bit more subtle. There are, I believe, ways to speed up "natural" toning, as opposed to applying products. Not sure what work was done here, and in which direction.

Hi Bob

So the 1st picture where the item was bright silver due to over cleaning was how I purchased it received the coin.

Like you I prefer natural toning so have been exploring options to find the best way of achieving this. I am not a fan of applying fake patinas, or tone paint at all. After research and practice on total slugs its seems when it comes to silver the best way to speed up natural tuning is by placing the coin in bleach. It only takes 30 session to 2 mins and you can see it darken before your eyes so you can take it out and rinse it off once it achieves a shade your happy with.

The 2nd part of this process applies to all silver coins inc those naturally toned or those retoned using the bleach technique, which is to use a white eraser just like the pencil erasers on the top of your pencil. The eraser is gently rubbed over the areas of the coin you want to lighting, scale back or even remove the toning from. This works well because it hits the raised points of the coin so the effect its the same ad natural wear on a toned coin.

I agreed about the toning on the coin above been to dark. I wanted to blend in the dark dots (seen in the brightly cleaned pictures) and work back from there.

Below are 2 further pictures are using the reader to further lighten the coins toning.

Cheers Jay

Bleach Never knew that trick. For over cleaned silver, I've always boiled a few eggs and hung the coin in a sealed jar. There you have it, natural toning thanks to the sulfur in eggs.

Travelcoin:

We don't put coins in PVC because the chlorine is a real problem with bronze. Bleach has a lot of Chlorine and using on pure silver is one thing, but were the Philip antoninianus coins even 50% silver? The rest has to be something that reacts with bleach so this could be an issue later on. I don't know for sure of course and the coin looks fine now, but that is what I was talking about with a coin the Romans enhanced the silver content of the surface of. If they even did in this case, there are probably a huge variation of coin silver percentages to consider.

Did you mean the final result Spencer?







To travelcoin the sulpur release to create natural toning via the eggs and jar method also works great I just find the bleach dip method easier to control and less fiddly.

Note the toning is the same as a natural toned coin i.e. it does rub of come away in your hands. The only way to remove it it gradually via the white eraser which is how I came to final result. Or bsck putting it bsck into foil, hot water and baking soda (which is how people and taking the tuning off in the 1st place).

Jay

Jay

Hi yes I can confirm the coin is for my collection.

I agree with your opinion with anything that's fake, replica etc when it comes to coins inc fake toning paints which can come off on people's hands fake green patina paints etc.

However I do feel this case is somewhat different because the toning is exactly the same as natural toning caused by the same chemical reactions.

Silver will react when exposed to ozone (a highly reactive and unstable form of oxygen), hydrogen sulphide, and some other chemicals. The most common cause of toning, tarnishing, or discolouration of silver is hydrogen sulphide, which can and does occur naturally in many atmospheric conditions.

Depending on the coins location and storage will dictate the levels of sulpur its exposed to in the surrounding atmosphere so the toning may occur over months, years or even decades. It's why coins in old collections are sought after as the toning has been become balanced and appealing after many years out of the ground.

The bicarbonate soda simply strips off any toning on the surface of the coin but it doesn't interact with the silver in anyway. This is how those who want a shinny silver look achieve this. Many Ancient coins are sold having had this done previously as we all know this tends to devalue the coin.

The bleach soak or hang the coin in a jar of eggs technique releases much higher concentrations of sulpur than found in the atmosphere in a short window of time, however its the same chemical processes exactly just rapidly speeded up.

Finally a white eraser allows you to remove any toning from the raised areas of silver coins gradually to allow a more aesthetically pleasing finished and removes the need to carry the coin around in your pocket for however long to cause the toning to wear off the raised parts.

I'll say this most big sellers and dealers have used these techniques for many many years. So you really have no way of knowing if that really nice toning on your silver denarius was caused by the atmosphere, storage conditions over years mixed with some good luck or if the above processes were used.

I personally won't pay what's sometimes a huge premium for aesthetically pleasing toning on a Silver Ancient coin knowing what I know.

Cheers Jay

I agree, I once bought a coin and when I put some Renwax on it, off came the patina. Didn't make me feel all that great, but I hardly paid anything for it, so I kept it. A $15 lesson - not bad.

At least with using a natural way of speeding up toning (eggs) it does not rub off - it's toning. I also bury over cleaned bronze coins, just dug up a few and they look great. Again, natural. Don't get me wrong, it does not duplicate a 1000 year old patina (nothing can do that), but it darkens the coins and brings out some highlights - green, red etc..