Gerter's newbie finds

New swinger here, putting my keys in the bowl and starting a finds thread.

First old coin, a very bad condition 1862 penny. Hope to be the first of many.

7 Likes

Could be your lucky penny Gerter. Looks like it’s had a chain and wore round someones neck.
Congrats.

1 Like

Great start Gerter, 1800s club already.

1 Like

Nowt wrong with an 1862!
Onwards and upwards… :+1:

1 Like

Thanks team, best way to clean it? Ammonia? The other side has quite a lot of oxidation.

Avoid ammonia on coppers/bronzes as it’ll often turn them blue. Keep the Ammonia for silver.
The green fluff is called Bronze Disease, unfortunately endemic in NZ with the humidity (at least up north anyway).
There’s two ways you can kill it, one fast and dirty, the other very slow and stable. Either way, the fluff is coin detail that has already been lost to corrosion. Killing the BD will save the coin, but won’t remedy damage that has already occurred.

Fast and dirty, wash the coin in distilled water, giving it a whisk with a toothbrush. Then put the coin in the oven at a low heat 150-200°C for 30-60min. then seal it with a fine wax, like Renaissance Wax, or some other microcrystalline wax.
This will however darken the coin permanently (You’ll notice a lot of Victorian pennies etc on Trademe are very dark brown, this is commonly why)

Method two, is to soak it in sodium sesquicarbonate solution for six months. As in SIX months.
This is the long term conservation method which neutralises the chlorides that will otherwise keep reforming as hydrochloric acid and slowly kill the coin.
I can send you some Sodium Sesqui if you want, or there are kitchen recipes on the web which are nearly as effective.

Be aware that the green fluff is contagious and if a coin with Bronze Disease comes into contact with another bronze coin, it will spread.

Happy to talk you through it if you want, A good write up and How To linked here…
Cleaning Ancient Coins

4 Likes

Great to know mudwiggle, thanks for the detailed reply. Interesting that it’s contagious. I will try sort something, all the detail is literally gone like you said, it’s almost just a flat coin except for the date and the outline of Marge Simpson in a wheelchair :stuck_out_tongue:

Muddlwiggles cure for Bronze Cancer is spot on and advice well given. Just now he reminded me of some bits and pieces I have here so I checked them. When I fist got some 1st and 2cnd Millenium BC - 3000 plus year old bronze artifacts I decided to clean the conglomerated sand etc off them - me bad - bad move. It exposed the bronze/copper to the air and within a week Bronze Cancer had set in.
In the end I cleaned that off then boiled the artifacts on melted bees wax and it worked well. I just went to get them now and yes they are beginning to show signs of deterioration again so will have to repeat the job though one item, the worst one at the time, is still perfectly stable.

1 Like

Next an 1888 shilling perhaps? So ammonia for this one?

3 Likes

I think I would be careful how you clean it and never over clean it. I just used soap and water and cotton wool - back in the day! It does look quite nice.

1 Like

Agree with you Lammerlaw. I’d leave it as is, it’s been around awhile so looks better with some tarnish. When they are bright & shiny they look fake in my opinion.

Great find by the way!!

1 Like

That’s an awesome shilling well done. 1888 the year of jack the ripper.

1 Like

Couple hours on a new permission, might need a larger coil… So much ground to cover.

2 Likes

Not a bad haul there gerter getting a bit of age if it’s a large area try griding it off and really searching that piece hard rather than doing the zombie walk it’s funny if you have early morning hunt with dew or frost it’s like a GPS

1 Like

As Chris says…grid. Main thing is to enjoy the continual finding and just plain immerse yourself in the passion! There is an aftermarket coil from o/seas you can get for your 705 that will change between all the khz’s with just that one coil…google it. From memory about $300 odd.

1 Like

Went back for another hour, too bad it’s a location where my holiday house is so won’t be back up for a while. Here is the final haul, the pin thing is quite interesting. The thrupence came out clean as a whistle, nice condition. Ticked a few things off the bucket list.

Apologies for the terrible photo quality.

1 Like

Back to the holiday spot over xmas for a couple of hours, happy with the 1934 George V shilling.

5 Likes

Nice bit of silver well done.

1 Like

Went for a late bush mission, only thing I found some what interesting. Not sure what Waihi Silver is, maybe one of you guys could fill me in. Thinking it’s just a junker.

Quick swing tonight, found a cool badge, no silvers though.

3 Likes