A Good Cleaning

Back in college, on an impulse buy, I looked at an eBay auction for "uncleaned Roman coins." Real coins, dug out of the ground, that you could clean off yourself and see a piece of history underneath! They were like a buck each, so I shelled out for ten of them. When they arrived in the mail, complete with simple cleaning instructions, I spent a weekend dirtying my bathroom and playing in lemon juice. Only one of the coins turned out to be much of anything - a copper coin from the time of the Emperor Probus - but I was hooked. I've always wanted to be an archaeologist (in fact, if I were to win the lottery tomorrow and quit my job, I'd go back to school and get a degree in archaeology and just do that for the rest of my life). I know that sounds like a strange thing for an aspiring writer to want, but I'm fascinated with history, I can make up great stories, and I've got a pretty logical mind, so I think it would be a good mix.

Anyway, I started learning more about the hobby of Roman coin collecting, and cleaning uncleaned Roman coins. Most hardcore coin collectors kind of frown on the process, since you're mostly buying slugs (worthless hunks of unidentifyable metal) from dealers who are trying to liquidate their junk. But occasionally you get good coins, and it seems to be a pretty cheap (and fun) way to get into the hobby. Here's a discussion from an email forum about it.

There are several thoughts on how to actualy go about cleaning coins as well. Right now, I'm trying a six-month olive oil soak on a batch. I've been reading a lot about electrolysis, which not only sounds fun, but could be a shocking experience. The only problem is that this method strips the patina, which isn't a big deal if you aren't planning on reselling your coins (as I'm not).