Hi folks,
Here is another progress report.
Yesterday, I started my 27th soaking (day 53).
In my previous progress report, I described how I wiped off the rust colored film on 3 of my coins. After the last soaking, a little
bit returned. I wiped it off again.
On one of my
Augustus AE As coins (one of the coins where I wiped off the rust colored film after the last soaking), 2 new medium-sized spots of orange/rust colored stuff (approximately 8-10 millimeters long by 2-3 millimeters wide) appeared on the surface, directly above where the BD was active. It was rather thick, considering that it appeared only within the past 2 days. This is the coin in the photos on page 1 of this
thread that
had the really bad case of BD. It
had the worst case of BD out of my 3 diseased
Augustus AE As coins. Using my Dremel brass tool and wet paper towels, I scrubbed and wiped off the 2 new areas. I assume that this means that the BD is
still active in this particular coin. And I've been continuously soaking it in sodium sesquicarbonate for almost 2 months.
My large, thick sestertius-sized AE
Spain,
Emerita, Augustus/city gate coin (I don't think I've posted a photo of it yet) has been completely stripped of the minimal
patina it
had. It now has an ugly splotchy/mottled look, similar to my AE
Egypt,
Alexandria,
Augustus, 80 Nummia coin, but even uglier in many ways. After my last soaking, it
still had 2 new spots of light green powdery BD (which weren't there a few days ago). I used my
sharp needle to dig and scrape it out. So, it appears that I am
still actively "drawing out" (via sodium sesquicarbonate soakings) chlorides from that particular coin, even after all these days of soakings.
Additionally, with regard to the
Emerita coin mentioned in the previous paragraph, after my last soaking, I scrubbed it with my brass Dremel tool. I was the first time I used it on that particular coin. I hadn't done it in the past because I didn't want to damage it. I scrubbed off the red/rust colored stuff that
had formed directly above the green BD. On some areas, under that, there was
still light green stuff (active BD?). Also, a few tiny-to-small-sized "flakes of metal" (each approximately 1-4 millimeters in
diameter) came off the surface of the coin on the
reverse. This appears to have primarily happened in the areas where the red/rust colored stuff was covering the previously green BD.
Meepzorp