If you wont rub a penny in the field please do not click!

[johnt_ms]

If you won't rub a penny in the field please do not click!

Did a little project this evening. A good buddy of mine and long time civil war relic hunter gave me a coffee can full of old civil war era buttons. These were mostly eagle and civilian buttons. The catch is they had been recovered from his home after it burned sometime ago. These were not high quality buttons before going through the fire. My plan was to use them in a test bed but first I decided to run them through my blast cabinet to see what they were. The results were prety cool. I subscribe to the if it is to toasted to even tell what it is why not clean aggressively and enjoy it. Anyhow I lightly blasted several items and here are the results. First two are same button before after. Next one was a button hammered into a poker chip.

 

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[johnt_ms]

Really liked this one I thought it was a plain flat button. Could see no detail before

 

[bigfoot1]

very cool...love the poker chip

 

[coinman123]

Really nice buttons, I think it was worth the heavy cleaning. My favorite is the poker chip button.

 

[Rick (Nova Scotia)]

John T I couldn't agree more, if you can't tell what you got, than how the heck can you hurt it much...

I have to laugh at so many posts, "how can I clean this without hurting it", when there is corroded crusty blank with no details visible, the answer is you can't hurt it as even if it was the most valueable coin it has no value in that condition.

The people who claim to be coin experts , really, they are just repeating what they read in a coin book, which has NOTHING to do with the biggest majority of what we find lost / discarded in the dirt for decades, or even centuries.

Don't rub a coin with a soft cloth, a tooth brush, ridiculous, these coins we find are already worn down to in most cases to VF at LEAST, many VG at best, how many cotton pockets have they been in "rubed against" ?, what is one more ? I will say it is best not to rub a silver coin with field dirt on it, as silver is quite soft, and will scratch with sand grit, but a cloth (after the grit is rinsed off), tooth brush, even with tooth paste in case of blacken silver...no problem.

I have been a collector all my life, and over 50 now, I have no problem with rubbing copper in the field, and often that is all the "cleaning" they get. I have like you resorted to extream measures when I wanted to know just what it was.

Good Post IMO.
Thanks for it.

And if sand blasting it what it takes to "restore" a button after a fire, than that is what it takes.

Good job on the button too BTW.

 

[Msbeepbeep]

I have dipped mine in CLR, because like you said it was toast when I dug it and it is not going to improve so I'm going to keep and enjoy it.

I think all the warnings are mostly for the newbies so they don't unknowingly devalue a great find, not having much experience with what it maybe, what its worth and if and how the crud can be safely removed.

I mainly just throw it in my pouch because my time is limited, I do the same with jewelry even if I think it's real, I keep searching.

 

[BosnMate]

I watched a knucklehead on video, wearing gloves, rub the dirt off a gold coin, and then some, just didn't stop rubbing. Don't know if he learned anything or not. If in doubt, don't rub.