Not bad for an inexpensive purchase

[ela126]

As a follow up to my 2 small purchases on Sunday. I’m happy to say 1 of the 2 turned out nicely.

Uncleaned coins can have a lot of potential, the eye has to look for the quality of exposed high points, then make an assumption that there is quality underneath. This coin was pretty easy to make that call.

before and after a sand patina cleaning. Probably going to stop for now, no wax on this one as it makes sand patinas look weird. Definitely good for the type.

Phocas - Half Follis - Cyzicus - SB 670 - 7.12g 27x23mm

before

after

[Ancient Coin Hunter]

Nice improvement. The trick I suppose is knowing when to stop the cleaning effort.

[ela126]

29 minutes ago, Ancient Coin Hunter said:

Nice improvement. The trick I suppose is knowing when to stop the cleaning effort.

that is defnitely the case.

sometimes taking pictures, setting the coin down for a while, looking at the picture and idenifying small areas to work on, and just those small areas, is what is needed. Otherwise you get carried away and then you're required to clean the whole thing off. been there a few times

[Hoth2]

You did a great job!  A lot of details under the crud.

[JeandAcre]

...And, this way, if you ever run into a True World-Class Cleaning Maven (such as @galba68), they'll always be able to pick up where you left off. 

Meanwhile, though, it's already terrific.  Orders of magnitude better than I'd ever do, if I spent the rest of my life learning how to.

Edited April 19 by JeandAcre

[CaveBear2]

This remind me I have so many coin to clean. But I don't know where to start.

Just putting them in distilled water for a few months and changing the water regulary while removing deposits with a toothpick from time to time should do the trick right? 

[ela126]

2 hours ago, CaveBear2 said:

This remind me I have so many coin to clean. But I don't know where to start.

Just putting them in distilled water for a few months and changing the water regulary while removing deposits with a toothpick from time to time should do the trick right? 

that is the most conservative option to clean a coin, but unless the dirt is soft, that doesn't yield meaningful results. If you're in no rush though, that's where to start.

I usually soak in distilled water for a few days, then i use, primarily, a very sharp diamond pin in a pin vice under a microscope at 20x mag. using little to no pressure, i run that over the dirt. It makes rather quick work of most deposits. Obviously it can be a bit more invovled, really comes down to a case by case basis

[CaveBear2]

Thanks for the answer, I think I will stick to the simple method before trying something more advanced 😁

[JAZ Numismatics]

That looks super! I would agree that that's enough cleaning. The contrast betqeen the sand and devices is perfect.

[Marsyas Mike]

Nice clean-up job.  A full-faced Phocas is a nice thing to have...mine are all worn, unfortunately.  Here's a follis from the same mint, with a worn-flat portrait:

 

Edited April 28 by Marsyas Mike