11/11 I'll have to see if I can find these coins...

11/12 Hmmm, I can't find any scans during the interim, nor the beginning scans of some of these coins.

It seems I totally forgot them. I didn't remember them until yesterday, when I was cleaning some of the pages up.

Well.... these coins have soaked for at least 2 months, some longer. It looks like Wurth's is relatively safe on patinas, and works wonders on some types of encrustation, while having little or no effect at all on others. Some of these coins hardly have any encrustation on them at all now. They must have been encrusted to begin with, or I wouldn't have thrown them into the container. The darker green almost smooth coin had metal showing at the start, I remember that. Other than that... I don't remember the conditions of the coins, or where on earth I put the scans.

After some exploratory scraping, some encrustations seem to be quite a bit softer, while others haven't changed.

I'll have to save up some crusties and try this again. If anything, I think this proves that 1) It is relatively safe on patinas 2) Most results will be seen within a week or so, and 3) Works great on some encrustation while not having any effect on others.

Most definitely worth more experimentation.

11/14 Another update. I finished four of these coins by hand, using the following:

1) Tony's Titanium Pins (Straight edge as well as point)

2) Dane's Diamond Pin (I think she's out of town, I have to find out where she gets these!)

3) Stiff and Soft Silver Brushes

4) Layered 3M radial brushes; 2 6 micron, 1 1 micron, 1 400 grit. So mainly we have 3 high polishers, plus a more gritty brush which is still safe on patinas.

I spent about 20 minutes on the reverse, and perhaps 35 or 40 on the obverse. The coin is not gorgeous by any means, but it is not displeasing in hand either. It appears to be much smoother in hand, than the scan is showing.

The patina (which is a chocolate brown, and has some green highlights) is still quite intact. The reverse legends on the right are not bare metal like the scan might suggest... it must be reflecting off of the Renwax.

Wurth's seems to work safely... and warrants more experimentation.

Addition 11/16/05

This coin has a light green cement on it. After a minute of scraping, I can usually get 5 or 6 grains removed... so this coin and its cement needs something else. I am going to put it into a container with Wurth's for a couple days. I'll try to remember it on 11/18. It's a light colored encrustation, so I'm thinking Wurth's may at least soften it up. Wurth's seems to work best on light colored encrustations for some reason.

After 2 days of soaking, I took the coin out and gave it a toothbrushing with soapy water. Here is what it looks like now:

I don't know why the difference in the color... it's still the same light brown that is usually a false (or very weak) patina (the 11/18 photo is closer to the beginning color than the 11/16 (beginning) photo.. The only thing that I can guess is it looks like I used a different background. The reverse is clean, after a minute with the pin and a silver brush. The obverse is still being pesky. I'm just starting with using a digital camera, it's hard for me to get the same results every time. After spending 3-4 minutes on the obverse, I've decided to throw it back in. I took the 3M radial brush to it, to get a better idea of what I had.

Putting white paper below the coin made the next picture darker, without changing the direction of the lighting... that must be what was different. As you can see, alot has come off of the obverse, and nearly all of it from the reverse.

I forgot about this coin. Oops!

11/26/05

Some more has come off, but I believe Wurth's has accomplished what it can do. Back to grinding this guy by hand. One interesting thing... it has turned some of the encrustation, that it was dissolving, white.

Back to the table of experiments