been slowly working on this coin for 17 months. ( I know, I must be nuts for spending so much time on a common
campgate ) but in all honesty, I've enjoyed it alot, and learned alot too, but almost sent this one to the copper recycling gods
The coin was in a weird encrustation/ going from cement hard rock on the outside, to a even harder rock/cement/ steel like deposit the further I went and the occasional soft spot thrown into the mix
Now for the record I don't like zapping, but in this case, the cement showed no signs of moving at all for 6 months or more of soaks and brushing and picking. so I decided to move up to more drastic measures.
I removed as much as possible with normal soaks , then
ran 6 volts throught it in 1 hour cycles for the next few months ( around 100-150 cycles) all the while removing minute amounts of dirt with picks and brushes..... and the results were quite surprising.
I was in all honesty expecting a un-attributable, moon cratered surface under the dirt, but as the rock slowly gave way in microscopic amounts, and The closer I got to the surface of the coin the bigger the chunks of dirt that were comming off,
as I reached the surface, it was comming off with just light pressure in thin slices ( like big pieces of ice falling off the glaciers ) but instead of revealing the cratered remnants of a coin, it began to reveal a coin wich
still showed a fantastic amount of details on both sides with just small amounts of damage to the
reverse, and even less damage to the
obverse. However, the
patina was obviously damaged
This pic is of the coin after a few dellars applications. I am not sure is the zapping was enough to loosen and
crack the dirt/rock but the surface was nearly free of
pitting. The zapping was followed by picking/brashing then usually a few more runs in the zapping bath, and an overnight drying , and repeat
I assume that the coin
had a very thin layer at the surface of the coin wich was covered by the concrete, but I am really glad it was there. I don't hink the zapping did anything to save the surface of this coin
the coin attributes as follow
AE 18 mm3.0 grams
OBV ::
CONSTAN-TINVS AVG. pearled diadem
head right
REV :: PROVIDEN-TIAE
AVGG.
Campgate with 8 rows, 2 turrets, no door and
star above
EX :: SMK
RIC VII Cyzicus 55
RIC rated R3
From uncleaned lot 04/2007
modern
patinaanyone else have beaten the odds with crusty coins they thought were imposible just to get a real nice specimen out of the deal
I'd be interested to hear about it
P.S. from now, I'm going to start taking more defore pics of problem coins in the event that they would be useful in the future
cheers
