First off let me just say I'm in no way an expert in cleaning ancient coins. The method I use comes from https://www.crustyromans.com/cleaning/ with a little variation.
The coins in this post come from multiple sources and were found in different terrain. Some came out of soil, some from rocky terrain and some from a beach. Each terrain causes different dirt and damage to the coin. Also, each coin "aged" differently so each coin should be perceived individually not as part of a lot. While one coin will show details after just a simple 24 hour soak others might takes months and still not end up as good.
I'll just add that most of the coins in the results look a lot better in hand than they do on the photos. I'm very satisfied with some of the results and the photos I took just don't give the coins justice. Nevertheless results can clearly be seen in most cases even over photos.
I would also like to thank everyone Numista members that helped me identify some of the coins in the "Coin identifications and valuations" part of the forum. I'm a novice coin collector, especially when it comes to ancients, and all your help is very much appreciated so thank you!
The time span of these photos is a little over a month. The tools I used are a soft toothbrush and toothpicks while for soaking I used distilled water and olive oil.
I don't have a "real" before picture since I didn't think I'd write this post when I first started so keep in mind the coins were soaked in distilled water or 24 hours at the start and were given a gentile rub with a toothbrush to remove the first layer of dirt. At the start I didn't think I'd be doing this and didn't take pictures of all the coins so some of the coins that will appear later aren't in the first two phases. I also got a few new coins while these were already soaking so I just added them in with the rest.
Phase 1: the first phase I put the coins into distilled water and let them soak or 7 days. A few photos of the coins before they were put in water:
The coin in the last photo was found by a friend of mine while visiting Portugal and was clearly medieval but needed cleaning so it was also added to the lot.
Phase 2: The coins have been removed from the distilled water (which was by this time very dirty) and given a gentile scrub with a toothbrush. After the scrub they were added back into fresh distilled water.
Some of the coins can already be identified. For instance the Maximianus Follis in the third photo (first coin second row) was already a great looking coin with just a few patches of dirt on it. Also a few coins were clearly from Moesia but the exact ruler was up for debate.
I had a feeling the two coins in the last row on the second photo were medieval not ancient but they came together with ancient coins so I treated them as such.
Phase 3: The pictures of this phase are a bit better than the first since I was already preparing for this forum post. The coins were removed from the distilled water, given a gentile scrub and then added into olive oil to soak or one week.
Phase 4: The coins were removed from the olive oil and split into two groups depending on how good they looked. The coins from the better group were put into olive oil again to soak for 2 weeks. The coins in the worse group were put in olive oil mixed with a tea spoon of lemon juice.
Most of the coins in the better group could already be identified. The best result so far was the medieval coin from Portugal which was identified by Giobruno here on the forum as a 15th century Ceitil. You can find the discussion about the coin here: https://en.numista.com/forum/topic74135.html
The Ceitil was not added back into olive oil as I think it's already good enough:
Phase 4.5: I had to change the olive oil + lemon juice solution two times since after a few days it would go green and thick with muck. While changing solutions I'd wash of the coins in distilled water and give them a gentile scrub while removing crust where ever possible with a toothpick:
Phase 5: After 2 weeks of soaking I got some nice results. I washed off all the coins with distilled water and gave them a gentile scrub while removing crust where ever possible with a toothpick.
I'll start o with the worse coins and make my way up to the best.
Three sestertiuses from Moesia. The one in the middle is Philippus I from the 244-245 while the other two still can't be positively identified. They might not look too good but getting them in a identifyable state is a success on it's own. These coins couldn't be identified at the start. I added these coins back into distilled water where they'll stay for about a month in hopes of getting better results.
Two Antoninianus, the first one is Aurelianus while I still can't identify the second. I added these coins back into distilled water where they'll stay for about a month in hopes of getting better results.
Three small coins, don't know what they are yet. I added these coins back into distilled water where they'll stay for about a month in hopes of getting better results.
A coin I'm very interested in. It's around 25mm in diameter and didn't show any details at first. Now after a few soaks it's starting to show some details and as far as I can tell it has a woman's portrait on the obverse. It still needs a lot of cleaning before it can be identified and has been put back into distilled water for now.
Two small medieval coins. The first one is silver and I can read "REX" on it, most likely Hungarian. The second one looks Arabic. These are also added back into distilled water.
The better results are:
As - Hadrianus, identified by Choucas on the forum: https://en.numista.com/forum/topic74598.html
Two Antoninianus with nice patina, I haven't gotten around to identifying them yet.
A nice Antoninianus - Aurelianus, most of the silver coating is still visible and is very shiny in hand.
Follis - Maximianus, I'm disappointed at the photo, in hand it's much better with the emperor's hair and beard details being visible.
Two sestertiuses of Philippus I, different years. I'm very happy with how there turned at as at the start you could barely tell what they were.
Two small coins, haven't identified them yet.
Sestertius Trajan Decius, I'm very happy with this one and it looks much better in hand than on the photo, especially considering what it looked like at the beginning:
Well, that's that, thanks for reading. I'll probably edit the post and fix mistakes once I get a chance to read it through and if there's interest I'll add the results of the coins that are still soaking.
Any comments, suggestions and questions are welcome.
