Numismatic and History Discussion Forums > Uncleaned Ancient Coin Discussion Forum

Help to clean this Gallienus coin

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Rafael Augusto De Mattos F:
Hi guys, how can I "clean" this coin, removing this very hard malachite deposits on it? I think the coin is good below all this malachite... Thanks!

SC:
Malachite will "pop" off with a scalpel if the underlying condition is right.

I have done this numerous times on silvered coins - you can see some examples in the "sticky" post about cleaning silvered Roman coins.

However, I don't know about the surface state of your coin.

Personally I would use a scalpel under magnification and clean some of the dirt encrustations off and also try to gently pop/lift off some of the malachite  - starting with small out of the way bit.  If it doesn't work you may have to leave the malachite.

SC

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