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cleaning late 1700's - early 1800's large cent?
Hello everybody im new here been metal detecting for 2 years now & recently got permission to detect a farm with some woods on property in north point maryland where the war of 1812 battle of north point occoured & been finding musket balls, shoe & acc buckles & buttons but yesterday i found what i think is a large cent but its corroded Bad! Norm i wldnt think of cleaning but im dying to know the year....any ideas?
Re: cleaning late 1700's - early 1800's large cent?
hello mechanic1482 and welcome to the forum . unfortunately theres not much you can do to that one to help it , i've recovered enough coppers to know when they show the ruddy rough bare areas a lot of damage has already been done to it . Coinnut ,HEAVYMETALNUT and a few others can voice their opinion if they think otherwise . it looks like a farm field find and coppers usually don't do well in these due to the years of abuse from fertilizers . you can try a hot peroxide bath with some q-tip rubs but i think it might be worse off after .
Dan
Re: cleaning late 1700's - early 1800's large cent?
Dan is correct. That red color and already visible pitting is not good news for coppers. If you want to get a date on it, try just rubbing the date area with your fingers. Make sure they are dry. Rub only a little and then look under a magnifying glass to see if the date is starting to appear. Tilt the coin in a lot of directions to get the light to cast some shadows across the date. If nothing appears, continue dry rubbing a little at a time and repeat the process. Sometimes you can get a date that way. If you remove all the dirt at once, you may end up with nothing left. If it is a Matron head copper, you may still get a date from it. They had pretty deep strikes on some of the years. Good luck and let us know how it went.
Re: cleaning late 1700's - early 1800's large cent?
Sounds like a cool spot you are on! Good luck, as far as the copper above I yield to the experts who have already commented.