OK, the scenario. A reasonably nice
Probus, fully attributable and yet looking very dirty. Soaking and brushing with a nylon brush are not achieving anything, and the worse, the coin is
silvered, with the
silvering already coming off in places so SBBB was a definite no no. I risked a little lemon juice but got no effect and TBH with it being
silvered I didn't want to risk it that much with lemon juice. The dirt over the coin appeared to be a mixture of hard clay, limescale deposits, and green and yellow corrosion.
Ordinarily I would have attributed it, (
RIC 801), and flipped it but something told me to push it on this one.
So I spent the best
part of 8 hours with a scalpel and a jewellers loupe, (I don't have a microscope
), and the result is as below with a before and after shot.
The
obverse had already lost much of it's
silvering so the detail can be a little tricky to see, but the beard etc is now very visible in hand. The
reverse now looks far better and even the
mint mark is quite visible as opposed to before.
What do you think, and for the cleaning experts out there, how did I do? What would you have done different?
regards
Mark