Welcome! I remember
a post back a year or two ago on cleaning them (when I first started collecting I got a lot that were all stuck together in a stack that
had crust like that and
had to figure out how to clean)...if I can find it I'll shoot you a link. Until I find it though, what have you done up until now?
Chris
PS whatever you do, don't do electryolosis on them; either the electrical or non-electrical way. They have a really high copper content and all you will end up doing is causing the copper to kinda "rise to the surface". I do not know a technical way to explain it, but even though the silver content is high enough to look silver, the copper is just waiting to shine through, almost like it seperates. This goes for
denarii and
tetradrachm as well.
C.
edit - I found the post I was talking about, but there are a couple of methods described that can be harmful to these coins and I remembered what I did.
Soak them in DW for a day or two.
Pull and put in lemon juice for no longer than 5 minutes
Using my softest brass
cup brush, and under running water, just feather touch the dremel to the crust in a circular manner until you have touched the whole coin
Using common
dish soap and a toothbrush (also under running water) clean the whole coin (to get rid of any remaining lemon juice) and return to the DW. Repeat until clean.
As sad as this is I lost interest in them the second I was done cleaning them and have never tried to attrib or even photograph, but I will take a pic and post here in a little
bit so you can see the results.
c.
(further edit) OK I took some pics. the first one was simply lemon juice and dremel, and if I remember correctly, possible a dull dental pic to
pop off the
pop off-able crud. The second coin was lightly
zapped and the rest of the process was the same (no lemon juice though). When I was first done with them they were much more shiny and easier to see the copper bleeding through, but they have been sitting on a window sill for like a year and have
toned a
bit. I marked the coppery areas on #2 though and hopefully you will get the idea.
