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Author Topic: Cleaning a Sest  (Read 1147 times)

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Offline simmurray

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Cleaning a Sest
« on: April 29, 2020, 05:23:00 am »
Hi,

I have come across this Claudius Æ Sestertius with SPES AVGVSTA reverse. When it arrived it was covered in a mix of pretty soft mud and a slightly harder set clay. With a mix of an initial Vulpex clean, distilled water soaks and some light mechanical cleaning I have removed the top layers of mud and clay but have now been left with a coin which has this tough brown encrustation which you can remove as I did remove a tiny amount under a microscope. My concern largely falls in to the reverse as the patina seems less stable and more porous than the obverse so not sure mechanical cleaning wont cause more damage in the longer run?

I am edging to longer DW soaks but not convinced it will do anything at this point on its own

Any advice appreciated

Thanks
Steve

Offline Justin W

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Re: Cleaning a Sest
« Reply #1 on: April 29, 2020, 09:09:17 am »
From the picture the patina does indeed look delicate. If you are not confident in cleaning it, may I suggest leaving it alone? It looks pretty good the way it is right now and especially if not cleaning it means leaving the patina intact.

Offline simmurray

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Re: Cleaning a Sest
« Reply #2 on: April 30, 2020, 05:32:42 am »
Decided to use a microscope and a number of hours yesterday evening slowly picking at the dirty and keep away from any areas that look too fragile or flaky - apologies about the terrible photo from my iPhone just wanted to send an update, the colour and detail in hand are different but at this point I think I'll put this in a flip and not risk any further cleaning

Thanks
Steve

Offline SC

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    • A Handbook of Late Roman Bronze Coin Types 324-395.
Re: Cleaning a Sest
« Reply #3 on: April 30, 2020, 09:43:15 am »
Looking at the portrait and the off-set reverse I suspect it is a provincial imitation.

I can't find an exact match in Banti but it looks like several incl. 707.

SC
SC
(Shawn Caza, Ottawa)

Offline simmurray

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Re: Cleaning a Sest
« Reply #4 on: April 30, 2020, 10:16:37 am »
Never even considered it being an imitation to be honest, I just assumed it was official. What attribution would you suggest for this coin?

Thanks
Steve

 

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