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Smoothing is a term most of the times found in the descriptions of bronze coins. In most cases it applies to a coin with a copper carbonate green patina, which had copper oxide encrustations. These encrustations were removed, "smoothed" down to field or detail level. The process yelds excellent results if the encrustation is located in the field. However, when dealing with the coin reliefs, the cleaner has to take great care not to modify the original form of these reliefs, and not to add extra detail. Attempting to recreate letters or detail often delivers grotesque appearance and can also be considered as tooling. Red encrustations most of the times develop from a weakness of the protective layer of green patina - especially air and water coming in contact with the base metal resulting in copper oxide. Simply removing them will result in often deep pits with rough surfaces.

Alexandru Marian
Smoothing is a term most of the times found in the descriptions of bronze coins. In most cases it applies to a coin with a copper carbonate green patina, which had copper oxide encrustations. These encrustations were removed, "smoothed" down to field or detail level. The process yelds excellent results if the encrustation is located in the field. However, when dealing with the coin reliefs, the cleaner has to take great care not to modify the original form of these reliefs, and not to add extra detail. Attempting to recreate letters or detail often delivers grotesque appearance and can also be considered as tooling. Red encrustations most of the times develop from a weakness of the protective layer of green patina - especially air and water coming in contact with the base metal resulting in copper oxide. Simply removing them will result in often deep pits with rough surfaces.