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 Replies: 15 / Views: 1,977 |
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Valued Member
South Africa
169 Posts |
Not only am I a Darksider, but I have now gone Evil, Yup, it is like the "Wet Paint" sign, well everybody will touch it. I have now officialy cleaned a coin  . I just had to do it  . After all that has been said about cleaning coins(DONT DO IT!!). I just had to try and see for myself what damages are done. I can honestly say, yes, it does damage the coin. It is now out of my system and I will not clean another coin. Forgive me for I have sinned  |
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Valued Member
United States
397 Posts |
Did you save us some before and after pics?
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Valued Member
 South Africa
169 Posts |
I feel too embarrassed to show these, but maybe it will be a lesson to others newbies out there. I soaked the coin in Pure Acetone for an hour, then removed it, took a drop of "Jiff",it is a cream type kitchen and bathroom cleaner. Rubbed it gently about 15 times between my thumb and forefinger and rinsed it off. This is the results, absolutely can see the damage that this does, I did not even use rough treatment on it, just rubbed it lightly with my finger. All I can say to the new guys out there, DO NOT CLEAN A COIN, EVER!     |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
3294 Posts |
 Well a good object lesson I guess. |
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Moderator
 United States
188283 Posts |
We do appreciate you sharing your experiment with us.  Learn from Zarboy's fail! Do not try this at home or anywhere else! |
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
2448 Posts |
OMG, what did you use to clean them, sulfuric Acid? I conserve my copper coins all the time to stop the verdigris but none have ever turned out like that.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
8904 Posts |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2605 Posts |
Evil - yes, Darkside - I don't know! You'd be a Darksider if you collected, say, US coins.  |
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Valued Member
South Africa
169 Posts |
Carmykle, this is a silver coin, honestly didn't use any acids at all, I just used a drop of the kitchen cleaner jif to rub it clean to see what will happen, to my shock this works like 'Make up remover", man was I surprised to see what was underneath the years of toning.  . nothin like the "Ancient Roman Coins: that I have lying in Olive oil for almost 8 months now. I wish I can get them to show me their true colours.  . Hope that I will not be banned from the forum for this act. Svslav, my heart is also in the US from my life there, So I guess, anything not US, is Darkside for me. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2448 Posts |
Thanks for the info. I use JC's Verdi-Care on silver and copper (EF40 and lower) to conserve them and it works great on lost causes. I use distilled water to rince because it's water soluble. I don't know if JC would endorse my practice, but you might want to try the Verdi-Care instead of the EVOO. I know from previous posts a lot of people don't like to use EVOO because of the oily aftermath.
Edited by carmykle
09/17/2010 9:19 pm
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
20753 Posts |
In reality what you did was sort of good only a really poor choice of subjects. Testing what a coin could look like after all types of cleanings is good idea for experience in cleaning a coin that may really need something done. Doing that to any coin worth more than face value is sort of nuts though.
I clean all sorts of coins but usually I purchase harshley cleaened or polished coins and attept to figure out how to possibly do some restoring. Occationally a further cleaning is necessary to remove whatever someone used in the past.
To clean any coin or antique that could possibly be worth a little more than face value is not the smartest thing to even try though.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
539 Posts |
so I have a question: did your cleaning do this or did the cleaning reveal these scratches. The 'damage' doesn't really seem consistent with a light rubbing of a cream cleanser.
I've done worse things to a coin. They looked good to the naked eye but, wow, under a 10x, they sure got a work out! Of course they were only $0.25 in catalog! Not condoning it, just saying...
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Valued Member
United States
102 Posts |
Got his gray beard to finally show thru!
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Pillar of the Community
Australia
1040 Posts |
Quote:
did your cleaning do this or did the cleaning reveal these scratches Jif cleaning product has an abrasive element in the ingredients, a bit like very fine sandpaper. So even gentle rubbing between the fingers will leave scratches. |
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Valued Member
South Africa
169 Posts |
Hi, Just Carl, totally agree with you,(bad Choice of subject), however in my defense this specific subject I obtained for $1.00 and the Herns Catalog value is $20,00 for a F. I really do not have any other choices to experiment with, as I am sitting in the middle of the desert out in the UAE and all coins come from internet, there is no shops out here."Not that it makes it right" . Weavus135 -latman 100, I would think that this was maybe harshly cleaned some time ago, and the light cleaning removed the surface toning thus revealing the true coin underneath, Just a guess. I also could not believe that a light rubbing could do that much to it.If I look at the scratch over the forehead, in the after pic that is almost gone. The experts on the forum might shed some more light on it. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
539 Posts |
I think the scratch is still there. It just is less visible now that the rest of 'toning' is gone. I wonder about this though. I suspect someone could have cleaned it awhile back but to have that much 'toning' seems a little artificial. I've not done this myself but I've read lots of folks here putting the coin in the window trick fro toning but could this have been some type of spray toning? The reason I ask, is that I had a coin once that looked 'funny' to me. So since it was not really very expensive I went ahead and used a nonabrasive detergent on it. Well, it was like the surface fell off. It was weird. the coin underneath looked really different. similar to this one. I know the cleaning I gave it didn't do this damage. Is there a spray toning people have heard of?
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Replies: 15 / Views: 1,977 |
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Posted 09/17/2010 08:56 am
