How to remove the haze from a dipped circulated silver coin?
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I have a valuable early circulated type coin that I thought the toning was kind of ugly on, so I gave it a 10 second bath in Ez est. I think it was a big mistake, because now it has a very flat, ugly, hazy appearance. Is there anything I can do, or am I done for? Actually for some reason, one side looks much better than the other, but I don't know why that happened.
Early American Copper, Bust and Seated.
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In honor of the memory of Cpl. Michael E. Thompson
Early American Copper, Bust and Seated.
It sounds like the toning was covering up a bigger problem, which has now been revealed.
This but who knows without pictures.
Make sure you aqueeze dry such coin against several soft tissues and not rub the coin in any way.
Had you done this first you might have had better luck.
The desire to improve a coin is an old one, and you aren't the first to try it. In skillful hands, some coins, on occasion, can be "improved", at least in the eyes of some potential buyers. Many more are ruined. Circulated coins usually aren't good candidates for dipping, as of course they will look dull and hazy afterwords. There isn't any luster to be uncovered and whatever character was there before is now lost. Probably the best you can hope for is to give it a few years to get a little skin back.
In the case of your coin, STOP. Resist the urge to try to improve it further. There isn't any situation so bad it can't be made worse. As frustration builds you'll resort to even bigger guns and eventually you'll be pulling it out of an oven to work it over with a dremel tool. If you really feel a need to experiment, work on junk coins with no numismatic value. After a few hundred of these you'll get a bit of a feel for what might be improved. Even the experts can't predict the outcome of every dipping adventure though.
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