Not all Cleaning is Bad

[Beau Newman]

My collecting started years ago as a young coin collector. It was drilled into me at an early age that cleaning or polishing is almost never done and I carried that rule over into medal collecting. I can find much pleasure in an old silver medal almost black with patina and would never think of "restoring" it by dipping or polishing it. However, there is the occasional exception.

This came out of Portugal a couple of years ago as a cased Oldenburg PFL Knight 2nd Class w/Crown. When I received it, I noticed 2 things. First, it seemed lighter than the typical silver piece and, second, the black "patina" on the cross appeared more like grime, rather than patina as it didn't show any underlying luster. Against my nature, I broke my "no cleaning" rule with a mild solution and this is what popped out:

I still have a strong anti-cleaning bias but, I no longer say never.

[Beau Newman]

The obverse:

[Beau Newman]

The reverse:

[Brian Wolfe]

A beautiful medal, this was one time going against your "grain" was a good thing.

Regards

Brian

[Hauptmann]

Hi Beau. Beautiful piece! But I wondered if you have any "before" pics... if so please post as it would be great to see the before/after.

Dan

[Wild Card]

Well done Beau. :cheers:

[Guest Darrell]

Hi Beau. Beautiful piece! But I wondered if you have any "before" pics... if so please post as it would be great to see the before/after.

Dan

I would tend to agree. No way of saying if it's better now or not without before pics.:whistle:

Edited August 20, 2010 by Darrell

[Claudius]

My collecting started years ago as a young coin collector. It was drilled into me at an early age that cleaning or polishing is almost never done and I carried that rule over into medal collecting. I can find much pleasure in an old silver medal almost black with patina and would never think of "restoring" it by dipping or polishing it. However, there is the occasional exception.

This came out of Portugal a couple of years ago as a cased Oldenburg PFL Knight 2nd Class w/Crown. When I received it, I noticed 2 things. First, it seemed lighter than the typical silver piece and, second, the black "patina" on the cross appeared more like grime, rather than patina as it didn't show any underlying luster. Against my nature, I broke my "no cleaning" rule with a mild solution and this is what popped out:

I still have a strong anti-cleaning bias but, I no longer say never.

This order in PARTICULAR lends itself as an excellent candidate for cleaning. With all its tiny, hand-painting it looks much better when it is clean and vibrant.

Beau: I also suspect you were making the point that what looked like lightly tarnished silver, turned out to be GOLD. We want to be carefull with this parable...otherwise everyone will be breaking out their Tarnex to see if their patina medals are gold.