An inexpensive way to purchase Ancient Coins is to purchasethem unclean. This means to purchasethem as they look immediately after they are literally dug out of the ground. These coins are often heavily encrusted anddifficult to see. The coins in thiscondition must be cleaned in order to identify them.
Cleaning Ancient Coins is a very long processand requires a great deal of patience.The process I use begins with soaking my Unclean Ancient Coins in distilled water for a month. Each week I scrub thecoins with a toothbrush and replace the distilled water with fresh distilled water. After a month, I look to identify eachcoin. If the coins are still tooencrusted to identify, I then repeat the process just described for anothermonth; scrubbing the coins weekly with a toothbrush and replacing with freshdistilled water. At the end of thesecond month, if I still cannot identify the coins, I repeat the process,except instead of distilled water, I soak the coins in Pure Olive Oil for amonth; each week scrubbing the coins witha toothbrush and replacing the old Olive Oil with Fresh Olive Oil. If after another month I still cannotidentify the coins, I use electrolysis.
Electrolysis
Although all the experts advise against cleaning coins as itcould seriously reduce their value, sometimes, at least with Ancient Coins, where there is really heavy encrustation, it is the only wayto remove enough to reveal any detail. There are a number of acids and chemical preparations that can be used, but asI am not prepared to handle these corrosive substances and the results often strip off all the antiquity from thesurface, electrolysis is my preferred method.
To start with you need an electrolysis unit. The cheapestway, providing you are reasonably confident, is to build your own using cables, alligator clips, a spoon, a paper clip, anda 9-volt battery. There are dozens ofinstructions on YouTube to help you, but basically, you cut 2 cables to 12-inch lengths, strip back aboutan inch of insulation from each end and attach crocodile clips to each end. Allyou then need is a plastic container, a 9-volt battery, a paper clip, a spoon, distilled water, and asuitable electrolyte and you are ready to go.
Fill the plastic container with distilled water and stir ina teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda until dissolved (you can use ordinary salt but with that, the process results in therelease of chlorine gas which can be harmful if inhaled). Attach an old spoon to the positive wire and the coin to the negative wire and suspend both inthe electrolyte making sure they cannot touch, and only then attach the otherends to the 9-volt battery. (If you are not sure which is which, simply dip both clips into the water, the onewith the most bubbles rising from it is the negative). You can attach the coindirectly to the crocodile clip but to prevent unnecessary damage I bend a paperclip into a cradle to support the coin and attach that to the crocodile clip.
I let the process work for about 10 minutes, switch off thepower, remove the coin and brush it with a toothbrush to remove anyloosened deposit then repeat the process until I have removed as much aspossible. With most encrustation, it can take 20-30 minutes in total to achievea satisfactory result.
The variables are the power of your battery, the strength ofyour electrolyte and the degree and type of encrustation. A kitchen timer makessure I don't lose track of time! My greatest success was with 11Roman coins (See pictures below) that were so badly encrusted that I thought they would never beclean enough to identify them. I put them through the process individually andin three sessions each, I managed to remove all the encrustation and reveal thedetails beneath. Please note that some coins may be in such poor condition thatyou could end up destroying them in the process rather than improving them, butthat is the risk you have to be prepared to take. So far, that has not yethappened to me, but, a couple of the coins have a great deal of pitting on thesurface, which is an indication that I ran the electrolysis too long. I hope this is helpful for those interested in Ancient Coins.
