Help! Super crud has attached to my Caracalla den!

[casata137ec]

Morning all,

What I have here is a junk box coin (my local guys can't seem to be able to tell really crudded up silver from really crudded up bronze...all the better for me!). The obverse just had the standard build up of black thick nasty crap which is now gone, the reverse had some major crusties that ate into the top of the coin (see pics below) and I really thought it was plated, but the stuff under the eaten silver was...well...still silver. Anyway. everything that had adhered to this coin is gone with the exception of the rock hard and seemingly immobile rusty looking crap on the back.

What I have done is: standard soaking and brushing, lemon juice soaks and brushes (several hours worth with no change at all), an overnight soak in 20% ammonia, an overnight soak in 40% ammonia, and mechanical picking.

Any thoughts or help would be appreciated.

Chris

[Mayadigger]

Ave!

Chris, wax, buff and flip. It's done.

Kevin

[mwilson603]

Without disagreeing with the Cleaning King, if you really want to, that stuff will come off Chris, but it can take a long time.  I used a combination of lemon juice and brushing, with scraping, and the occasional dip in a limescale remover (10 seconds at a time).

regards

Mark

[Johnny]

NIce Job on that coin Mark.

I , fortunately , have not had to deal with this type of crub  before, but eventually I have a feeling I will ,  good to knwo there is a cure out there

Chris,  definately keep us posted on the progress on this 

cheers

[Mayadigger]

Ave!

Without disagreeing with the Cleaning King, if you really want to, that stuff will come off Chris, but it can take a long time. I used a combination of lemon juice and brushing, with scraping, and the occasional dip in a limescale remover (10 seconds at a time).

regards

Mark

Please feel to disagree with me anytime, folks! Yes, Mark is correct, and I should have mentioned it, as well. My main consideration was/is the seen at the top of the Rx, where some of the silver is missing.

Chris, if you do decide to "go for it", go slowly and carefully. Place a single drop of LJ on the effected area, let it sit for just a minute or two then use a common dental pick, sideways, to gently scrap the problematic area. As Mark, mentioned, it will take a bit of time to remove the encrustation. Think of it as a one week project. But, if you begin see that beneath the encrustation similar to that as seen on the top, you really need to slow down and consider if you want to continue.

Just my two cents worth,

Kevin

[mwilson603]

Does anyone know what the red stuff is by the way 

[casata137ec]

I am gonna put this one in the "clean when I feel more comfortable pile" for the time being, and as for what the red stuff is: it is a major pain in my rear is what it is! 


Chris

[Robert_Brenchley]

It looks like iron oxide.