I have decided to walk my readers through a zapping session of less than excellent crusties. I made the decision to try and find a good coin in a group of coins I bought about two years ago from a dealer who advertised them as “premium.” I have about 25 of these coins left from the original purchase of 50 coins. The reason I have these coins on hand is because they were such terrible coins. They all have been leeched and are rotted or pitted. I have been fortunate in learning with whom I should deal. For me this is moving back in time about six years when I was trusting and buying from anyone who offered a coin for sale. I have chosen 11 of what appears to be the best of the bad. It is obvious the remainder of the coins hold no hope at all. I have photographed the coins prior to placing in the solution so you will get some idea of what I am working with.
It is now 1:50 PM and I have the coins in the solution and all coins are very active in the solution. This is evidenced by the “boiling” I see around the coin’s clip. My power supply is dialed in at 15 volts and the amperage is already up to 6. I have a timer set to remind me to check the amps in 15 minutes. As the amperage increases I will pull back on my voltage. I want the coins to zap at 6 volts. It is now 2:07 PM and the amps are climbing so I will go ahead and adjust to 6 amps although the timer indicates I have over three minutes left before checking.
I have adjusted the PS to 6 amps. This is the level at which I want to zap the coins. I have reset my timer to 15 minutes. I don’t want the amps to go off the meter. My power source (Pyramid PS 26KX) has a built in protection and will shut down if the amperage goes beyond 12. The unit shuts down and sounds an alarm. I think this has happened to me three times in the past and I don’t think it is good for the PS.
I zap with a top on my container but I will take a cursory look at the coins right now although I have only been “cooking” for 25 minutes. One never knows when a crusty is going to open up and expose a nice coin as the crust falls away. If a coin shows evidence of the crust opening up, I will give the crust a nudge with my bamboo stick and see if anything falls away.
2:28 PM. I just finished checking the coins and I used the bamboo stick on each. One coin is obviously a slick. I have three coins that are “concrete” encrusted. I am pretty sure I see evidence of a Licinius. Another coin appears to have a fallen horseman reverse. Nothing to write home about at this point. I expected as much since I had very little success with this group of coins in the past. I have not bought from this dealer again. These coins were sold to me as premiums and I was disappointed in his “grading” of the coins.
The amps had crept up a wee bit so I adjusted back to six amps. I have reset the timer. I mentioned the concrete crusties. I used the blunt end of my bamboo stick to scrape away what I could of the rock hard crust. I have found that the closer one is to the coin the better, regardless of the hardness of the encrustation. I try to avoid metal tools but on occasion and as a last resort, I have scraped the concrete crust with a dental tool. I try to scrape away crust without actually engaging the metal of the coin when I use this procedure. Remember, this is a last resort action! Allow the zapping process to do its thing. Don’t get in a hurry.
It is now 2:55 PM and the amps appear to have stabilized so I will now set my timer to 30 minutes. Based on experience I know the amps will not climb much higher than an 8 at this point. I am about to go through the coins again and see if I have anything to pull.
I checked all the coins. One more slick. I am having a really tough time breaking through one coin’s concrete layer and I lost one coin. As I was scraping the crust with my bamboo stick the coin collapsed in my hand and crumbled. There is no way to prevent what happened. The coin was pretty much “chalk.” I am continuing to zap the broken coin so you can see what one can expect from a zapping session. I think it is important to mention the following at this point. I could have cherry picked coins I knew would render good results for this exercise. However, I chose this lot because I think this is pretty typical of what a newbie might receive on Ebay.
It is now 3:31 PM. I will check the coins again. Well! Nothing exciting. I am sure I have a 20 mm Licinius and it will grade at least a Very Good. I have one slick. I dropped the broken coin in my deep garbage pail I use when cleaning coins. It was not worth hunting for. I think I see a Constantine with a two soldiers and two standard reverse. I have either a Valens or a Valentinian. I saw a very interesting radiate facing left. Beautifully centered but I think the condition is pretty bad. I finally took my Dremel grinder to the hardest of the rock-hards. I teased the grind down to the surface of the coin. I think that coin would have resisted for a day or so! I saw one fallen horseman reverse. Little promise there. Another slick. I saw one coin with an interesting reverse. It is a standing figure facing slightly left. Overall. I am disappointed in the 11-coin lot.
At this point in the zap if I could see a coin or two coins that had a potential value of 10 dollars each I would be ok. Unless something breaks through I don’t see it. I really feel frustrated and deeply disappointed in the dealer I bought these coins from. I think it is our nature to need someone to blame our misfortune on and I am searching my spirit as I zap the coins and write this to see why I am losing touch with my spirit. I have hundreds of coins. Why do I need more? I have allowed a bit of time to pass and now I realize my ego wanted to make a point about how good I am. My ego wanted something “magic” to happen. This reminds me that buying coins is still a learning experience for you guys. This is the reality of coin zapping. I now feel my peace. I am back in touch with my spirit. You guys have asked me to prove nothing and you only want the truth. We are set free by the truth and the truth is that Jerry does not get all good results! Ahh! I feel great! Thank you God!
It is now 4:50 and I am about to check the coins again. I feel deeply disappointed in that I don’t have a profound answer to give you guys as to how to purchase coins other than what I have said about the return factor. I just bought 25 coins on faith alone. I hope the coins are as good as the coins he has sent in the past.
Boy, this is running into much more time and space than I had thought. I am trying to teach and walk you through each step so I think all I am saying is important. It is now 5:30 and I am going to pull the coins. They are really bad. Again I feel your frustration. I think we need to work at finding a method to prevent you from receiving this kind of junk. You will find a before and after picture at the top of the article. I hope this has been worth your time to read. I hope there are procedures you will and can include in your coin cleaning. Please let me know if this helps you understand better. God Bless.. Jerry..
It is now 1:50 PM and I have the coins in the solution and all coins are very active in the solution. This is evidenced by the “boiling” I see around the coin’s clip. My power supply is dialed in at 15 volts and the amperage is already up to 6. I have a timer set to remind me to check the amps in 15 minutes. As the amperage increases I will pull back on my voltage. I want the coins to zap at 6 volts. It is now 2:07 PM and the amps are climbing so I will go ahead and adjust to 6 amps although the timer indicates I have over three minutes left before checking.
I have adjusted the PS to 6 amps. This is the level at which I want to zap the coins. I have reset my timer to 15 minutes. I don’t want the amps to go off the meter. My power source (Pyramid PS 26KX) has a built in protection and will shut down if the amperage goes beyond 12. The unit shuts down and sounds an alarm. I think this has happened to me three times in the past and I don’t think it is good for the PS.
I zap with a top on my container but I will take a cursory look at the coins right now although I have only been “cooking” for 25 minutes. One never knows when a crusty is going to open up and expose a nice coin as the crust falls away. If a coin shows evidence of the crust opening up, I will give the crust a nudge with my bamboo stick and see if anything falls away.
2:28 PM. I just finished checking the coins and I used the bamboo stick on each. One coin is obviously a slick. I have three coins that are “concrete” encrusted. I am pretty sure I see evidence of a Licinius. Another coin appears to have a fallen horseman reverse. Nothing to write home about at this point. I expected as much since I had very little success with this group of coins in the past. I have not bought from this dealer again. These coins were sold to me as premiums and I was disappointed in his “grading” of the coins.
The amps had crept up a wee bit so I adjusted back to six amps. I have reset the timer. I mentioned the concrete crusties. I used the blunt end of my bamboo stick to scrape away what I could of the rock hard crust. I have found that the closer one is to the coin the better, regardless of the hardness of the encrustation. I try to avoid metal tools but on occasion and as a last resort, I have scraped the concrete crust with a dental tool. I try to scrape away crust without actually engaging the metal of the coin when I use this procedure. Remember, this is a last resort action! Allow the zapping process to do its thing. Don’t get in a hurry.
It is now 2:55 PM and the amps appear to have stabilized so I will now set my timer to 30 minutes. Based on experience I know the amps will not climb much higher than an 8 at this point. I am about to go through the coins again and see if I have anything to pull.
I checked all the coins. One more slick. I am having a really tough time breaking through one coin’s concrete layer and I lost one coin. As I was scraping the crust with my bamboo stick the coin collapsed in my hand and crumbled. There is no way to prevent what happened. The coin was pretty much “chalk.” I am continuing to zap the broken coin so you can see what one can expect from a zapping session. I think it is important to mention the following at this point. I could have cherry picked coins I knew would render good results for this exercise. However, I chose this lot because I think this is pretty typical of what a newbie might receive on Ebay.
It is now 3:31 PM. I will check the coins again. Well! Nothing exciting. I am sure I have a 20 mm Licinius and it will grade at least a Very Good. I have one slick. I dropped the broken coin in my deep garbage pail I use when cleaning coins. It was not worth hunting for. I think I see a Constantine with a two soldiers and two standard reverse. I have either a Valens or a Valentinian. I saw a very interesting radiate facing left. Beautifully centered but I think the condition is pretty bad. I finally took my Dremel grinder to the hardest of the rock-hards. I teased the grind down to the surface of the coin. I think that coin would have resisted for a day or so! I saw one fallen horseman reverse. Little promise there. Another slick. I saw one coin with an interesting reverse. It is a standing figure facing slightly left. Overall. I am disappointed in the 11-coin lot.
At this point in the zap if I could see a coin or two coins that had a potential value of 10 dollars each I would be ok. Unless something breaks through I don’t see it. I really feel frustrated and deeply disappointed in the dealer I bought these coins from. I think it is our nature to need someone to blame our misfortune on and I am searching my spirit as I zap the coins and write this to see why I am losing touch with my spirit. I have hundreds of coins. Why do I need more? I have allowed a bit of time to pass and now I realize my ego wanted to make a point about how good I am. My ego wanted something “magic” to happen. This reminds me that buying coins is still a learning experience for you guys. This is the reality of coin zapping. I now feel my peace. I am back in touch with my spirit. You guys have asked me to prove nothing and you only want the truth. We are set free by the truth and the truth is that Jerry does not get all good results! Ahh! I feel great! Thank you God!
It is now 4:50 and I am about to check the coins again. I feel deeply disappointed in that I don’t have a profound answer to give you guys as to how to purchase coins other than what I have said about the return factor. I just bought 25 coins on faith alone. I hope the coins are as good as the coins he has sent in the past.
Boy, this is running into much more time and space than I had thought. I am trying to teach and walk you through each step so I think all I am saying is important. It is now 5:30 and I am going to pull the coins. They are really bad. Again I feel your frustration. I think we need to work at finding a method to prevent you from receiving this kind of junk. You will find a before and after picture at the top of the article. I hope this has been worth your time to read. I hope there are procedures you will and can include in your coin cleaning. Please let me know if this helps you understand better. God Bless.. Jerry..
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