i don't see why not. try it one day at a time use a toothpick on the patina. be careful though make sure the pick is wet also. some of my coins have patina on them that is like saturated in the coin. so in that case, leave it be.
What characteristic does olive oil have that is supposed to clean coins? I've had some pennies soaking for a couple of weeks and they look just like they did except greasy!
i've found that some of the one cents,( indian heads and wheaties) are what i call saturated with patina. that is that it's actually in or below the surface and therefore unable to be removed. the best chance is if the coin is encrusted with patina and dirt.have a friend who found a coin under some pines and it looked terrible, but actually the tar had protected the coin. when it softened with olive oil , the coin looked beautiful.
I'm with you guys, I never clean something unless absolutely necessary, and old coin that looks like new copper, to me
is worth a lot less than one I can see a patina on... why do you want to remove a nice green patina ?
But on the other hand, this coin appears to have green splotches of a type of metal fungus that if allowed to
continue, may damage or destroy good copper relics.
When I lived in Spain, we dug many brass or Copper items, and many "would be" nice Roman coins that had the
Copper Crudd on them. it eats into the metal, and puts pits in it where it is. The only thing I ever discovered that
would stop it, was high temperatures to kill the fungus, there will still be pitting where the fungus was and it turns the
object a chocolate brown color, but it stops the green fungus from continuing, and helps preserve the object for the
future. I believe this green stuff is caused a great deal by fertilizer or chemicals put in fields, because that seems to
have been where we found it most of the time.
I've done a few of my things in a small toaster oven, heating the object until really hot, they actually came out looking better
than when they went in.
Hope this helps.
Richard
Thanks Richard. Found some old axe heads and other interesting RIO's and used the propane torch on them also. Old iron needs to be heated sometimes to make sure the moisture is out of it. It can be oven baked also. Thought about doing it with a coin but wasn't sure. Think I'l do it with a few of the beat up ones to try out.
F2D talk to a coin dealer on this one and hold off on the olive oil. I've had coins soaking in olive oil for over a year. Both of my indian head pennies are so dark now that I can barely read the date. The olive oil sealed the metal. I also had a V nickle soaking and I could barely read the date to start with, now its impossible. Olive oil might be best used on semi corroded metal that you want to save. Like horse shoes and square nails. Please don't ruin such a nice specimen without experimenting on cheap or badly worn coins first. Jason