Lets See Your "Before and After" Photos

[coinman123]

No before photos of this colonial brass spigot. But it came out very good. It looked just like half of Ahab's before photos of Indian Head cents, just as crusty and nasty. No real pitting though. It was completely covered with a hard crust that was a blackish-brownish color. It looked ugly. First I soaked it in hot water to loosen up to crud on it. I wanted to do hydrogen peroxide but it would waste up half the bottle and not fit in any containers. Than I scrubbed it with some paper towels. It still looked pretty bad, except there was not dirt on it but that black crust was all over it. I than did the unthinkable!! I put it in a large container of hot water, I grabbed a pull tab and scraped at it with the side of the pull tab while it was underwater, the crust slowly came of and got lost in the water it was in. I continued for and hour, tediously scraping crust off of the spigot. When I was done I noticed that there was not a single hairline scratch on the spigot, it looked a beautiful smooth green color. I'm guessing that because the spigot was brass and harder than the aluminum pull tab than the pull tab could not scratch though. I'm certainly not going to try that on any coins anytime soon though!!!

Towards the end of the year I found another spigot, this time one made out of pewter and from the mid-1800's, it was impossible to clean.



I never found the Morgan dollar in the photo, I'm using it for size, some people use clad quarters for size, I use Uncirculated silver dollars

 

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[pepperj]

No before photos of this colonial brass spigot. But it came out very good. It looked just like half of Ahab's before photos of Indian Head cents, just as crusty and nasty. No real pitting though. It was completely covered with a hard crust that was a blackish-brownish color. It looked ugly. First I soaked it in hot water to loosen up to crud on it. I wanted to do hydrogen peroxide but it would waste up half the bottle and not fit in any containers. Than I scrubbed it with some paper towels. It still looked pretty bad, except there was not dirt on it but that black crust was all over it. I than did the unthinkable!! I put it in a large container of hot water, I grabbed a pull tab and scraped at it with the side of the pull tab while it was underwater, the crust slowly came of and got lost in the water it was in. I continued for and hour, tediously scraping crust off of the spigot. When I was done I noticed that there was not a single hairline scratch on the spigot, it looked a beautiful smooth green color. I'm guessing that because the spigot was brass and harder than the aluminum pull tab than the pull tab could not scratch though. I'm certainly not going to try that on any coins anytime soon though!!!

Towards the end of the year I found another spigot, this time one made out of pewter and from the mid-1800's, it was impossible to clean.

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I never found the Morgan dollar in the photo, I'm using it for size, some people use clad quarters for size, I use Uncirculated silver dollars

Nice spigot! Not a bad job on the Morgan either, buffer pads on the 3/4hp using a pair of pliers holding the silver works great I see!

 

[coinman123]

Nice spigot! Not a bad job on the Morgan either, buffer pads on the 3/4hp using a pair of pliers holding the silver works great I see!

Why would I ever do that when I have heavy duty sand paper and a coarse block of concrete to rub the coin on Buffer are a bad idea... they use up too much electricity when I have sand paper and a trusty block of concrete right at my side.

That method work wonders!!!!
It is great if you love getting your coins ending up looking like scratched up shiny silver disks.

 

[coinman123]

This is one of my best results cleaning. When I saw it in the plug my first thought was "toasted copper".

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I gave it a light dry cleaning with toothbrush and dropped it in olive oil. A few days later I took a q-tip to it and this is what showed up.

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So happy the way it came out it became my avatar

I think that with a wood toothpick on those black crusty spots you can get the whole coin to look that nice green color and be a lot more even. Just wet down a wooden tooth pick in warm water and scrape it on the crust, it should come off extremely easily. That is a very nice large cent you found, I would have never though that the crusty dirt cake in the first photo would be that beautiful copper.

Coinman123,

 

[Bob207]

I think that with a wood toothpick on those black crusty spots you can get the whole coin to look that nice green color and be a lot more even. Just wet down a wooden tooth pick in warm water and scrape it on the crust, it should come off extremely easily. That is a very nice large cent you found, I would have never though that the crusty dirt cake in the first photo would be that beautiful copper.

Coinman123,

Well I took your advise and you were right. The black does come off and leaves the green. I was afraid the green was going to come off and leave pits. Heres how it looks now....little more to do but I'm about done with it.

 

[CoilyGirl]

I'm amazed at all the results from cleaning. All my old coins have been found in cornfields where heavy fertilizer has been used and sadly, I'm afraid that they just totally ruined the coins. I have a 1906 V nickel soaking in some Olive oil right now and some detail is coming out. I've discoverd that extra virgin olive oil might be a little too acidic on old copper coins. Bob207 I love that largie you restored. The one I found looked like it was hit with a plow and has very little detail.

 

[Jason in Enid]

Actually, EVOO has very little acidity. It's the cheap, heated and processed olive oil which is acidic.

 

[Ahab8]

I highly recommend using mineral oil rather than olive oil. It is a little more pure and it won't darken coppers as much as the olive oil

 

[coinman123]

Well I took your advise and you were right. The black does come off and leaves the green. I was afraid the green was going to come off and leave pits. Heres how it looks now....little more to do but I'm about done with it.
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Wow!!! Now it looks even more amazing!! I love that color on copper coins but can't seem to get it, it appears that they can not be pitted for it to happen. You are right though, under the green color there is pitting so it is best to leave some parts which green in coming off alone, edges especially. Like I said before, I would have never expected that toasted copper in the first photo would look like that.

 

[Ahab8]

Here's a good example of a coin that if I completely removed the green you'd see zero detail. It takes awhile to really figure it out

 

[Professor of Engineering]

The 1803 large cent has some beautiful detail!

 

[Professor of Engineering]

I love the tree coin, absolutely a stunning find!

 

[Turbo21]

Here's a good example of a coin that if I completely removed the green you'd see zero detail. It takes awhile to really figure it out
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Same thing happened to me. Dug an 1823 large cent. And had a fair amount of detail and was able to read the date. Too long in peroxide and too much picking. And now it's pretty much dateless



Even at this pic below. I had gone too far. The crust was what was keeping the date visible

 

[Ahab8]

Same thing happened to me. Dug an 1823 large cent. And had a fair amount of detail and was able to read the date. Too long in peroxide and too much picking. And now it's pretty much dateless

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Even at this pic below. I had gone too far. The crust was what was keeping the date visible


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It's a delicate dance and is so hard to not go too far. I always feel like I can go a bit further and I go a little too far. I think my problem is that early on I found this 1760 HIBERNIA and the more I cleaned it the better it looked. So then I thought I could clean the crap out of old coppers and not lose detail. Problem is that unless they are very solid we lose the detail easily. Here's the HIBERNIA that spoiled me

 

[coinman123]

Same thing happened to me. Dug an 1823 large cent. And had a fair amount of detail and was able to read the date. Too long in peroxide and too much picking. And now it's pretty much dateless

View attachment 1121202

Even at this pic below. I had gone too far. The crust was what was keeping the date visible


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That happened to me on a coin, except mine was a mere wheatie. I was cleaning off some wheats I found to look for a date and see one with a nice green color and loads of detail, I tried to clean it to get some more details and ended up removing some of the desirable green color and ended up ruining it. Good thing that this did not happen on a great coin.