Numismatic and History Discussion Forums > Uncleaned Ancient Coin Discussion Forum

How do you deal with a chipped patina?

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Nathaniel N2:
I recently finished cleaning up an As of Hadrian and I think it ended up cleaning into a great coin. the patina is as smooth as a mirror almost everywhere, and then you get to a chip on the face that occurred before I set eyes on the piece. Whats a good way to deal with this damage? In my mind I go to Baumgartner painting restoration videos on YouTube. Is there any type of fill in medium I could use to fill the damage, and then a paint I could use to touch it up? I would of course want it to be reversible. my goal would be to hide the damage though for my personal enjoyment.

mauseus:
Hi,
You bought a coin with a chipped patina,  you must have hopefully  been happy with the coin and price. I would say don't fix it,  live with it,  based on the reasons why you bought it. Fixing damaged patina,  particularly this damaged hard green patina,  would be wrong in my opinion.  It is so different to the idea of cleaning a coin.  Live with it would be my response.

Having said that I have a pierced orichalcum sestertius.  I plugged the hole with beeswax that matches the patina colour,  but it is temporary and totally reversable.

Regards,

Mauseus

Joe Sermarini:
There is no accepted honest repair or restoration. It could be done with matching color epoxy and I expect that this is done by someone somewhere. This is not, however, considered an acceptable practice. I think it would be OK if the color was slightly different and the "restoration" was noted in the description. This is accepted for other antiquities, but not for coins. 

The colored wax sounds like a good idea and since this should be obvious when closely examined, I think is perfectly OK. Again, it would have to be described at time of sale. 

Nathaniel N2:
I definitely don't want to use epoxy, any restoration of any piece of art should be completely reversible. I like the wax idea. I'll have to look and see if I can find a good green wax to put on their that makes the damage less evident. *Maybe a nice wintergreen pine scent would be nice XD*

I don't have any plans to sell this coin in the future and it's just for my enjoyment that I cleaned it.

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