Another Example of my "Fish Tank" Experiment
We are very short-handed at work at the moment, so probably won't be able to update this as much as I would like... but I just want to show the improved and safe results over conventional soaking one more time.
Coins are as I received them, and initially (9/13) weigh 46.8 grams. I just grabbed a few from my little pile randomly.
I somehow lost a coin last night when I was changing filters and such. I'm not quite sure which one it was, but it seems to be a smaller coin. Weight is now 44.8 grams for 11 coins. I can't find it in the bottom, but I remember finding 5 or 6 coins in the bottom that I knocked out of containers while cleaning the tank. I threw in the large Greek coin into this assortment now. Now the coins weigh 57.7g altogether. The Greek (large) coin has a partial patina that I'm curious about, so decided to single it out from the rest. The obverse is particularly nasty, so we'll see how it goes.
The filters I had running were nearly black after adding 100 or so new uncleaned coins, so I had to change them last night around 2am after a 10 hour shift (and I haven't had a day off for nearly 3 weeks), so I'm surprised I haven't lost more lol.
I think one can see the difference in the amount of dirt easily enough, and the coins were only soaking for just less than 24 hours.  The Byzantine had a partial patina to begin with, so it wasn't my technique that removed the patina (see scan). Believe it or not, there are a couple coins that I would consider ready for finishing... just after 24 hours of soaking. I'm telling you... this works!.
Unfortunately, it works a bit too fast. I have 60-70 coins awaiting attribution, around 50 waiting to be entered into Moneta and flipped, and probably 300 coins still soaking but are ready to be finished.

 

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