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cleaning coins with olive oil.
- Thread starter bibelot
- Start date
REVIER
Well-known member
Very slow process, but if you have patience and time it works.
An oil bath, use something softer than the metal like a toothpick and every once in awhile pull it out and work on small sections to pick off whatever should not be there.
I know it works on bronze, I assume silver, copper and other metals it would work well also.
Mother's Day of 2011 I dug up this token which is one of my most prized possessions.
It was a high zinc signal, about 4 inches deep in Alabama clay/soil and I assumed it had been in the ground for a very long time.
The soaking and drying action of that red clay filled soil down there did a number on this thing, it was so heavily encrusted with layer upon layer of rock hard concrete like mud and dirt that I didn't know what it was.
It is the size of a half dollar and I figured it was just a steel knockout plug from an old electrical box or something like that and it had rusted so bad it was unrecognizable.
Luckily, I rarely throw any of my finds away till I get a chance to check them out a little more thoroughly.
After attacking this hard with a green scrubby I was floored when I saw some words coming through the small area I attempted to clean.
I put it in my tumbler with some not so rough stones and checked it often till I could read both sides because I did not want to destroy it and I wanted to keep the beautiful patina intact and many more words emerged.
This was not coated with rust, just a layer of dark hard packed dirt.
Later, after doing research, I discovered this is a pretty rare token rated R-10 and that only about 5 or 6 others like it are known to exist, it is the size of a half dollar and it has a date and at the time I was the only one that ever put a picture of one from Birmingham on the entire world wide web.
Since then I saw one on EBay posted for sale with a ridiculously high price tag.
Unlike many other merchants tokens I have found here with no info on the long gone business that handed them out, there was a ton of info about this one I eventually found and I even tracked down a picture of the actual storefront.
Like I said, one of my favorite finds of all time if only for the history I was able to track down.
It looked ok after tumbling and a little more easy hand scrubbing but it still had sections of a thick black tar like substance in several spots.
I wanted to display this and I needed it to look better so I took a cue from another member who posted he puts his valued coins in an olive oil bath for weeks, or months, and picks at them every so often with a toothpick.
For about 8 months I did the same and I am very happy on how it eventually turned out.
If you could have seen its condition when it came out of the ground you would know how miraculous this transition really is.
Again, this technique takes a lot of patience, but it took a long time in the ground to mess it up so taking whatever time and effort needed to heal it the end results are worth it.
First pics are after my initial cleaning, second set after that 8 month oil bath and several picking sessions.
An oil bath, use something softer than the metal like a toothpick and every once in awhile pull it out and work on small sections to pick off whatever should not be there.
I know it works on bronze, I assume silver, copper and other metals it would work well also.
Mother's Day of 2011 I dug up this token which is one of my most prized possessions.
It was a high zinc signal, about 4 inches deep in Alabama clay/soil and I assumed it had been in the ground for a very long time.
The soaking and drying action of that red clay filled soil down there did a number on this thing, it was so heavily encrusted with layer upon layer of rock hard concrete like mud and dirt that I didn't know what it was.
It is the size of a half dollar and I figured it was just a steel knockout plug from an old electrical box or something like that and it had rusted so bad it was unrecognizable.
Luckily, I rarely throw any of my finds away till I get a chance to check them out a little more thoroughly.
After attacking this hard with a green scrubby I was floored when I saw some words coming through the small area I attempted to clean.
I put it in my tumbler with some not so rough stones and checked it often till I could read both sides because I did not want to destroy it and I wanted to keep the beautiful patina intact and many more words emerged.
This was not coated with rust, just a layer of dark hard packed dirt.
Later, after doing research, I discovered this is a pretty rare token rated R-10 and that only about 5 or 6 others like it are known to exist, it is the size of a half dollar and it has a date and at the time I was the only one that ever put a picture of one from Birmingham on the entire world wide web.
Since then I saw one on EBay posted for sale with a ridiculously high price tag.
Unlike many other merchants tokens I have found here with no info on the long gone business that handed them out, there was a ton of info about this one I eventually found and I even tracked down a picture of the actual storefront.
Like I said, one of my favorite finds of all time if only for the history I was able to track down.
It looked ok after tumbling and a little more easy hand scrubbing but it still had sections of a thick black tar like substance in several spots.
I wanted to display this and I needed it to look better so I took a cue from another member who posted he puts his valued coins in an olive oil bath for weeks, or months, and picks at them every so often with a toothpick.
For about 8 months I did the same and I am very happy on how it eventually turned out.
If you could have seen its condition when it came out of the ground you would know how miraculous this transition really is.
Again, this technique takes a lot of patience, but it took a long time in the ground to mess it up so taking whatever time and effort needed to heal it the end results are worth it.
First pics are after my initial cleaning, second set after that 8 month oil bath and several picking sessions.
vito
Well-known member
Very slow this is, yes. Used this in combination with a ultrasonic here on old coins, token, buttons, etc.
But since I used soaking items in soy sauce I have to admit this is my first choice now.
After soaking for 5 minutes I check the degree of cleaning. This shows when to check again... 5 mins or 10 mins or 15 mins.
Works a lot faster and better in my opinion.
The photo shows a half german Mark (50 Pfennig) before and after soaking in soy sauce.
[attachment 335996 Half-MarkKikkomanbefore-after.jpg]
But since I used soaking items in soy sauce I have to admit this is my first choice now.
After soaking for 5 minutes I check the degree of cleaning. This shows when to check again... 5 mins or 10 mins or 15 mins.
Works a lot faster and better in my opinion.
The photo shows a half german Mark (50 Pfennig) before and after soaking in soy sauce.
[attachment 335996 Half-MarkKikkomanbefore-after.jpg]
bibelot
Member
Soy sauce is super quick.Make sure you monitor the soak time.I threw a bunch of pennies in soy sauce to see if they would clean up.They were left in about a half hour or so and they were pretty well stripped clean, some had mineral deposits hardened on them but they were pretty much clunkers anyways, my reason for using them to test.Notice the penny in the center that was cleaned in soy sauce.It's coloring doesn't look right.Upon that I looked online, 1943-45 pennies were made from spent ammunition cases, that penny is a 1944, was pretty rough condition but the soy sauce stripped it down pretty well, almost too good.Since then, I have been checking wheat back dates and you see I have a start of a collection of 1943-45 pennies.Now I am thinking what the other crusty stuff I dug up with them were most likely the 1943 steel pennies that didn't survive the wait until I could find them.Sorry for the blurry coins,I pulled them from olive oil to snap a picture of my ammo case pennies.Monitor your soak time with soy sauce as it cleans jiffy quick.These pennies have became my favorite, other than the war nickels and mercury dimes.vito said:
Revier, that's a really cool token I love how you added the photo and history with it. And great job with the cleaning!
Olive Oil is slow as molasses but it is the best way I've found to preserve patina and get a beautiful and natural finished look like you have with this token.
Soy sauce like so many other acidic products can be successfully used to improve, but be careful. You can make that coin, token or whatever look washed out or otherwise unnatural very quickly. With anything of value or anything I really liked I'd go with a Extra Virgin Olive Oil soak using a toothpick to gently remove debris every so often.
Olive Oil is slow as molasses but it is the best way I've found to preserve patina and get a beautiful and natural finished look like you have with this token.
Soy sauce like so many other acidic products can be successfully used to improve, but be careful. You can make that coin, token or whatever look washed out or otherwise unnatural very quickly. With anything of value or anything I really liked I'd go with a Extra Virgin Olive Oil soak using a toothpick to gently remove debris every so often.