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Author Topic: How to Clean Silvered (not Silver) Coins  (Read 49469 times)

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Offline SC

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Re: How to Clean Silvered (not Silver) Coins
« Reply #25 on: March 22, 2010, 08:19:33 pm »
The cleaned coin.  I probably spent 2-3 hours on this coin.

I have posted two images of the reverse with the lighting angled different ways to try to better show what silvering remains.

Shawn
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(Shawn Caza, Ottawa)

Offline SC

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Re: How to Clean Silvered (not Silver) Coins
« Reply #26 on: March 22, 2010, 08:27:53 pm »
Now an early Heraclea campgate from the same hoard.

Poor quality images before the dirt was cleaned off with toothpicks.

Better images before I started exacto cleaning.  This coin had more silvering showing and much less of the green encrustations.  Nevertheless the encrustations were spread out and the thin dirt layer was all over so the entire coin needed mecahnical work.

Shawn
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(Shawn Caza, Ottawa)

Offline SC

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Re: How to Clean Silvered (not Silver) Coins
« Reply #27 on: March 22, 2010, 08:32:33 pm »
Images of the fully cleaned coin.  This one took around 2 hours.

All this cleaning was done dry.  I have never exposed these coins to water.

Under 20x magnification I did notice that the pin was leaving minute scratches - not really visible with the naked eye.  As a result I have tried to minimize the pin use even more and do almost everything with the exacto.  With a thin tip blade and the 20x magnification you can even clean between the letters with the blade.  I now only use the pin in some hair and beard lines.

Shawn
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Offline agord

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Re: How to Clean Silvered (not Silver) Coins
« Reply #28 on: February 03, 2016, 02:12:25 pm »
I use a #15 scalpel under a stereo microscope. Requires practice, I started by trying on some culls that I had saved to use as give aways. Here are before and after pic of a recent effort.

Offline Joe Sermarini

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Re: How to Clean Silvered (not Silver) Coins
« Reply #29 on: February 03, 2016, 03:25:58 pm »
Nice work!
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Offline Mayadigger

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Re: How to Clean Silvered (not Silver) Coins
« Reply #30 on: October 15, 2019, 06:03:19 pm »
Ave!

The very first thing when it comes silvered coins is to determine whether it's "silver plated" or "silver tinned".

The first example is a Silver Plated fourree; Note how the obverse has buckled up. Too easy to see.

The next example features a pair of Vine Leaf vessel adornments. Looks like silver but it just simply solder used to attach it to a copper alloy wine vessel.

Is it gold plated or just oxidized silvering? Yes, in this case the artifact was gold plated.

Too many coin cleaners have a bit of confusion when it comes silver tinned coins. In most cases the silvering appears just a bit dull, as seen in the next example below.
All the yellow-looking bits are the silvering
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