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Tried cleaning a roman coin with distilled water and olive oil for 3 weeks
The patina came off completely and now it looks like a modern penny, has anyone else totally ruined a coin trying to clean it the safe way?
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gibson.sean1mo ago
Dude that sucks, I feel your pain. I tried a similar method on an old silver dime once and the whole surface basically turned into a weird pinkish color, total bust. It's brutal when you try to be careful and it still ends up looking worse than when you started.
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lisar141mo ago
Same thing happened to me with an old pocket watch, now I just leave stuff alone unless I really know what I'm doing. It's like how people over-scrub a cast iron pan and ruin the seasoning, you try to fix one thing and create three new problems. @gibson.sean it's wild how a small mistake can turn a decent piece into a science experiment gone wrong, the pinkish color thing is real on silver when you hit it with the wrong acid. That whole "a little knowledge is dangerous" idea applies to everything, from coins to cars to cooking.
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