Tried that old 'scratch test' on a roman coin I found and it went about as well as you'd expect

I found this small bronze coin in a field near Chester back in 2018 and kept it in a drawer for years thinking it was nothing special. Last month I remembered that old trick where you gently scrape a tiny bit of metal to check if it's silver underneath the crud. So I grabbed a steel pick and gave it a little scratch on the edge. Instead of seeing silver I just watched the whole face of the coin crumble into green powder. Turns out bronze disease is a real thing and I basically destroyed whatever detail was left on that thing. Learned the hard way that you never ever clean an uncleaned coin until you know what you're doing. Now I just keep the crumbly bits in a baggie as a reminder of my stupidity. Has anyone else wrecked a piece of history before getting smart about conservation?

3 comments

3 Comments

val9491mo ago

Did you at least film it for the rest of us to learn from?

reese_nelson1mo agoMost Upvoted

4mm scratch test? More like 1850 year old coin turned into fancy dust. At least you got a cool science lesson out of it.

carr.elliot1mo ago

Did you try anything else before the scratch test that might have saved it?