'2 Cent' Restoration

[gary s fl]

This ‘2 cent’ coin was worn and badly corroded so I didn’t have much to lose by trying to restore it.

I decided against electrolysis because of the type of corrosion and I wanted to maintain as much detail as possible.

I also could have saved a lot of time and hassle by lightly scrubbing with a brass coin brush which would have removed the corrosion but the result wouldn’t be pleasing and the detail would probably have suffered.

A ‘2 cent’ coin is made from the same composition as an Indian head penny so I tried heated hydrogen peroxide since it’s probably the least invasive cleaning method other than using plain water.
I soaked it 2 hours using a Pyrex dish and candle warmer and checked it every 15 min or so. The peroxide barely fazed the corrosion plus the visible ‘2’ had nearly disappeared and it exposed the pitting.

The next process used ‘Lime Out’ (similar to CLR). I soaked the coin 20 min. then scrubbed it lightly with a toothbrush. Much of the corrosion was removed and more detail could be seen but it also exposed more of the pitting especially on the obverse which had the worse corrosion, (probably because it was the side facing up in the ground).

I soaked it another 30 min. in ‘LO’ and rubbed the coin but didn’t scrub it. Much more detail was revealed and almost all the corrosion was gone except for the edges where the pitting was the worse.
I could have stopped there but I was still hoping to expose more of the detail so I soaked the coin another 60 min. in ‘LO’. Initially I thought the additional soaking had caused the detail to nearly disappear, that was until I scrubbed the coin again with a dry toothbrush which surprisingly brought out the detail again but in some aspects not as well as after the 30 min. soaking.

Lastly I applied Blue Ribbon coin conditioner which further enhanced the detail to the point that I could make out most of words on the reverse and see the ‘2’ and oak wreath. The detail was much better when held at an angle to the light, whereas the detail was better when viewed from 'straight on' after the 30 min. soaking. The obverse improved very little except that more of the shield was visible and the ‘1’ in the date could be seen though not apparent in the pictures.

The pictures show the changes after each step. I only showed the obverse ‘before and after’ pics because the corrosion was so bad and there wasn’t much to see.

Pics # 1 & 2- After water cleaning and light toothbrush scrubbing.
#3 - After 2 hr hydrogen peroxide
#4- After initial 20 min treatment with ‘Lime Out’
#5- After additional 30 min soaking in ‘LO’
#6- After additional 60 min soaking in ‘LO’
#7- After dry scrubbing coin with toothbrush
#8- After applying Blue Ribbon with some rubbing (straight on shot)
#9 & 10- Showing coin at an angle to the light
HH

[romeo-1]

Ouch...good effort but that is one hot mess!

[Sniffy]

doesn't matter how hard you try...that ones gone....just like my 1st one.

[Iron Patch]

I say keep trying, you just have to believe!

[GopherDaGold]

The good news is you just bumped up the value of the rest of them.
Heckuva try though!

[gary s fl]

Restoring a nasty dug coin is a challenge but can be satisfying especially when your able to expose the date or detail of an older coin that was previously a corroded slug. Hopefully someone will gleam something in the post that will help them. Gopher your right, this '2 cent' made my first '2 cent' look a whole lot better. HH