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Author Topic: What & How please? Any Help for my Caracalla?  (Read 1751 times)

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Offline Tiathena

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What & How please? Any Help for my Caracalla?
« on: March 22, 2007, 12:13:05 pm »
 
        Avete omnes,
 
   I’ve just this morning re-shot this Caracalla Nemesis, from Pessinus, and having it again in hand here, am wondering really – what is all this ‘reddish’- brown-ish stuff on the obv. and could it be safely removed somehow?
 
  I’ve never cleaned a coin in my life – so that’s probably not a good start.
  I would love to be able to remove this stuff, whatever it is and reclaim this side of the coin, but – honestly – it would break my heart if the coin suffered any damage in the process.
 
  Might anyone offer any helpful thoughts, advice, tips - ?
  Please bear in mind too, with regard to making suggestions, I have no cleaning ‘tools’ as such and, apart from my periodic reading of Posts / Threads in this section, I’ve precious little idea even what tools there are, etc.
  Still, this is one I’d much like to restore if it is safely-possible.
 
  I rather have my doubts, but it’s worth asking …
 
   
 
 
     Most gratefully,
     Tia
 
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Circus_Maximus

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Re: What & How please? Any Help for my Caracalla?
« Reply #1 on: March 22, 2007, 12:22:13 pm »
from my experience red is the most difficult to remove but there may be some soak that would help. I'll be watching for answers on this one. it could be early bd.

Offline Tiathena

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Re: What & How please? Any Help for my Caracalla?
« Reply #2 on: March 22, 2007, 12:34:04 pm »
 
        Thanks Circus Max,
 
  That’s been my intuition as well…  I’m hoping not B/D.
 
      
 
      Best,
      Tia
 
Facilius per partes in cognitionem totius adducimur.  ~ Seneca
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Douglas

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Re: What & How please? Any Help for my Caracalla?
« Reply #3 on: March 22, 2007, 12:55:14 pm »
Looks like what you get when you have these bronze "blisters" on a coin, and it looks like someone has already ground them down, particularly in the field area. If that's the case then there's nothing under the red than more red. Someone else might have another opinion, but that's what it looks like to me. Certainly not bronze disease to my eye.

Doug

Offline Tiathena

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Re: What & How please? Any Help for my Caracalla?
« Reply #4 on: March 22, 2007, 01:25:46 pm »
 
     Much thanks, Doug!
 
  I’m ever happy to receive good news!
  Well – “.. If that's the case then there's nothing under the red than more red” – isn’t particularly ‘good news’ – but better than bronze disease.
 
  The spots are quite smooth, and it appears as though some cleaning has been done with, fortunately, the decency and good taste not to start tooling the letters at legend’s end.
 
  Best,
  Tia
 
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Offline slokind

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Re: What & How please? Any Help for my Caracalla?
« Reply #5 on: March 22, 2007, 03:35:10 pm »
IMO, that coin is too rare to experiment with.  And I suspect Doug is right.  Pat L.

Offline Robert_Brenchley

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Re: What & How please? Any Help for my Caracalla?
« Reply #6 on: March 22, 2007, 05:19:40 pm »
I don't think you'll improve on the work that's already been done on that. Leave it be rather than risk ruining it.
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Offline Tiathena

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Re: What & How please? Any Help for my Caracalla?
« Reply #7 on: March 22, 2007, 05:21:41 pm »
 
    Thanks very much Pat,
 
  That’s enough for me.
  For any experimenting, I’d probably just buy some 'crusties' or such-like.  This would be the last coin I’d want to experiment with – I sure agree.
 
  ..Leaving thus only the ‘academic question’ – does anyone have any good idea what this actually is on (in?) the coin?
 
  Incidental note: this photograph is Very-well lit and in-hand, these discolorations on the obverse are much, much-less ‘pronounced.’  So much so that in dim, poor lighting, one has almost strain to discern them at all.
 
 
   Thank you as well, Robert.  I much appreciate your input also.
  That's good enough for me x2!
 
   Best,
   Tia
 
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Mark Farrell

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Re: What & How please? Any Help for my Caracalla?
« Reply #8 on: March 23, 2007, 04:21:17 am »
Tia,

I've got to generally agree with what's already been said. The reddish stuff is probably some type of cuprous oxide, and it is truly the stuff that scares me most. If it were green and bumpy, that would be a very different story, because that type of mineralization responds great to mechanical cleaning -- it sort of crunches off (seriously, it crunches!). The red stuff sort of gives when you push it. Try it with a straight pin in an unobtrusive location. Touch the pin to the red stuff and gently push. It just indents it like the red stuff was plastic.

I have seen this stuff get removed chemically, but in your case, most of the coin isn't covered by it and the really nice toning over the rest of the coin would probably be permanently destroyed by the chemicals that could remove the red stuff. Not a good thing.

The areas of red stuff have absolutely been cleaned before -- there's still marks from the red stuff being ground down. The person who did this did it pretty well. The only way to improve it is to further grind it down. But with the amount remaining? I don't think it will improve the coin as much as it will risk damaging it.

I have seen the red stuff like this cover bronze disease. That is fairly new to me and I don't think it is really all that common. Most times, the red stuff doesn't cover it. I had a simply beautiful Justin large folles that quite literally crumbled from BD under the red stuff. It can make you sick. But I don't think your coin is that much at risk.

Sometimes, you can only go so far with what nature left you. And I think you are there with this coin. My gut tells me that you have only a one in ten chance of being happy once you start messing with this.

So, my advice is this: look at the coin tenderly, sigh a couple of times, rub it between your fingers, admire it for what it is, and put it back into the flip.

Mark

PS The only person who I have ever seen conquer the red stuff is Kevin Sandes -- he literally transformed some Pan coins by grinding the red stuff down ever more carefully, and more carefully, and more carefully, and then by very gently "polishing" the area so that it sort of blended into the rest of the coin's natural toning. But he has been doing it for YEARS and sometimes even he backs off. Drop him an email or PM him for another point of view.

Offline Tiathena

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Re: What & How please? Any Help for my Caracalla?
« Reply #9 on: March 23, 2007, 09:51:07 am »
 
     Much & many thanks for those helpful thoughts, Mark.
 
  I shall leave this one as it is.
  Sometime, I may try to get it into the Sun and shoot it again, and see if I can get a shot that shows how it looks in hand too – and post it here also.
  I’m not sure whether you or other ‘devoted cleaners, conservators’ would be surprised how subtle it actually is on the coin in hand so to speak.
  It seems to scream ‘eye-sore’ from this extremely illuminated photo, but it’s not nearly so flagrant.
 
   Of course I’d rather it not be there at all – but …
 
   Is it typical to see such on just one side of a coin, too?
  I’m guessing / assuming that whatever its cause(s), owes to direct contact with whatever ‘foreign’ agents – e.g. soil minerals, contact with other coin-metal(s) in a hoard jar, or etc..?
 
  My thanks again for your generously full reply.
 
    Best,
    Tia
 
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Offline Potator II

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Re: What & How please? Any Help for my Caracalla?
« Reply #10 on: March 23, 2007, 09:56:05 am »
Hi Tia dear,

Just leave it as it is, very nice, and as stated before by Pat, too rare do do experiments of any kind.

Best
JC

Offline Tiathena

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Re: What & How please? Any Help for my Caracalla?
« Reply #11 on: March 23, 2007, 10:03:48 am »
 
   :)  Warmest greetings my friend!
 
  I shall indeed.
  He is no less loved for the scars Cronus has awarded him.
 
  Though looking at this coin I’d as well not be thinking of Tolkien, I can’t help thinking – ‘..it is precious to me..!
 
    Very best,
    Tia
 
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Mark Farrell

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Re: What & How please? Any Help for my Caracalla?
« Reply #12 on: March 23, 2007, 12:24:27 pm »
Tia,

My personal experience is that the type and severity of corrosion, or any mineralization, can vary significantly from one side of the coin to the other. I've even seen it where it toasted one half of the coin (both sides) but left the other half clean. A most curious phenomena that is determined by how the coin is buried, what it is buried within, what rests next to it, etc.

That is what drove me to cleaning mechanically -- having half a coin that needed something while the other half didn't. Chemical treatments affect the entire coin, though sometimes not equally. Some soaks such as distilled water or Gringott's Conservator Mix (I've had great results with the gentleness of that, recently) seem to focus most on the heaviest mineralization, which is heartening. Even so, they can't -- and aren't intended to -- do everything. Like everything else in life, it takes a balance/combination to achieve the desired result.

Mark

Offline Tiathena

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Re: What & How please? Any Help for my Caracalla?
« Reply #13 on: March 23, 2007, 01:44:48 pm »
 
   I thank you again, Mark.
 
  That all makes perfect sense to me.
  It is probably inevitable I’ll try to clean a coin or two, or ten – eventually.
  While the chemical-soak approach would be good where being the most profitable one (for results, I mean) – it does seem to me that the mechanical cleaning would be the most enjoyable – for a host of reasons.
 
   Thanks again!
 
   Best,
   Tia
 
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