Using pollution

[Figleaf]

You must have seen them, those harsly cleaned coins, shiny like Aunt Mildred's silverware and not a trace of patina. Here's my favourite recipe. I leave them on a windowsill for a number of years. Each year, they get turned around. Where I live, the air is not very polluted, but silver coins are back to normal in about 3 years. Copper takes a litle longer to return to milk chocolate brown, but it gets there. I learned this trick from famous Amsterdam dealer Jacques Schulman. Jacques lived on one of Amsterdam's canals and his shinyware got enough sulphur to get back to a normal colour in about a year. The wonderful thing is a) harsly cleaned coins are a lot cheaper and b) you now have an official reason to procrastinate. Just make absolutely sure your loving wife doesn't clean the dirty old coins for you.

Peter

[bruce61813]

That's not a trick, that's how they got to be that color the first time. People assign 'grren' to age, when the real surface color keeps turn darker brown until it reaches a black. The green oxides require water and other chemicals. But this is one of the things I have advised for some time now. It is good to hear others recommend it.

Bruce