Cleaning an ‘As’ of Emperor Nero, minted 60s Ad.
Cleaning a relatively common “As” of Emperor Nero from 60s Ad. In lower grade, covered in deposits. Photo from eBay ad which made me think it was a good candidate for cleaning and quick improvement. Unfortunately the patina under the dirt was not what I was hoping for. This blog is more of a story […]
Cleaning an Antoninus Antioch Provincial with an orange “Desert Patina”
Quiet possibly my easiest clean that ended well. Simple as toothpick, brush and some tight work under a microscope. https://rpc.ashmus.ox.ac.uk/coins/4/7000
When Cleaning a Rare “Commodus” from Carrhae results in an RPC listing being pulled.
Background I purchased this interesting provincial roman coin in a lot of coins from a local dealer. While I do believe I overpaid on average, I am very happy with the before and afters coming out of this lot. Like any hobby, cleaning coins costs money. It’s not common to find a rare coin dirty, […]
Cleaning a Silvered Antoninianus of Tacitus, 275 AD.
I purchased this coin as part of a larger lot of random bronze artifacts from various periods. Most of it was junk, but there were some interesting pieces. I purchased in part because of the Tacitus Double Denarius which was identified by a fellow roman coin enjoyer in a forum that I posted to. Below […]
“Star of Bethlehem” Trichalkon, under Augustus
Background/History I purchased this coin from an uncleaned coin dealer in early 2023 amongst a lot of other assorted 1st century bronze coins. I paid ~60 USD per coin in the lot, which is a tad north of their retail on average but that’s par the course for premium uncleaned coins. In the lot there […]
Process of cleaning ancient coin (Case Study)
1. Acquire some dirty coins Find a dealer that provides dirty coins. There are many categories of uncleaned ancient bronze coins 2. Image and Identify coin as best as you can before cleaning Taking Photos Taking good before photos is important in the process. It allows for you to later see before and after comparison. […]
Greek Tetras of Sicily
About the coin NOTE: Mistakes were made in the cleaning of this coin. From an educational perspective, I would recommend not using the pin tool as much as I did for the mechanical cleaning. Longer distilled water soaks + bamboo skewers should have been included prior to the diamond pin tool. The Diamond Pin tool […]
Emperor Claudius Bronze Dupondius
NOTE: This is also a story of going too far in the pursuit of removing deposits. Trying too remove encrusted deposits, I inadvertently and ignorantly tooled the legends/portrait and smoothed the fields. Many experts and professionals would consider this going too far and damaging the numismatic value of the coin. This is not an uncommon […]