I've got a table in my office that is covered with ice cube trays filled with coins soaking in olive oil. They've been there a long time, and I needed to move them somewhere else to use the table for
work. With nowhere else to put them, I poured the olive oil out of the trays into an empty plastic Coke
bottle. I was experimenting with WD-40, and
had one tray of coins soaking in it, which I poured into the
bottle with the olive oil. I went through the coins, drying them off individually, but they were
still so encrusted I didn't bother with trying to clean any of them. Almost as an afterthought, I put about 35 coins into the
bottle with the olive oil (and WD-40) and placed the
bottle on a bookshelf.
The next morning, I went to check on them and noticed a light brown layer of dirt that
had settled to the bottom of the
bottle, and the oil
had turned a very dark green. I knew something strange
had happened so I emptied the
bottle and took out the coins to find that all but the hardest encrustations
had dissolved into a light brown layer of sediment and exposed
patina was stripped, leaving bare metal.
Needless to say, I was very upset... even if they were just some
LRB AE3s and AE4s.
What happened? A reaction between the WD-40 and olive oil? Something to do with the
bottle itself? A mysterious, 1700 year old curse by the pagan celators opposed to the Christianization of
Rome?
I'd post a picture, but I'm too ashamed.