Coin cleaning process - polish next?

[moderntimber]

So, this is my very first old coin (meaning not clad) which was found on the beach after about 2 hours with my XS. First two pictures show the damage done by the salty ground. I always wanted to build a electrolysis system to clean the coins (well, every since I read about it in forums) so I did and used it on the coin. After about an hour and black, cloudy water, the coin came out pretty much the same as it went in. Actually the lines seemed a little less visible (i was surprised to see this.) The picture that's a bit blue-ish is the coin after electrolysis. Then I put it in the tumbler for over an hour, and although a bit cleaner, not much difference. I had some cleaners in there along with very little water and some sand. Finally, I asked my friend who is a dentist to put it in his ultrasonic cleaning machine. After 2 hours, again, only looked about the same. It seemed like nothing would clean that green oxidation. Then the big break: my friend said he has a fine sand blasting unit which he uses to clean porcelain teeth with. We tried that, and voila! The dull pictures show the end result. Now I have to figure a way to polish them a little because the metal is now very exposed to elements since sand blasting. I have a little Dremel buffing wheel but not sure what to use as buffing chemical. The dentist wanted to polish it for me, but I wanted to see (and show everyone here) the initial sand blasting result. Sorry for the long paragraph.

I know some will immediately say not to do that to all old coins... and I'm aware of this, but I felt this coin was almost beyond recognition, and the fact that I've tried other modalities of cleaning before the sand blast with no avail, I thought it was ok. All in all, I'm not familiar with which coins are very rare, but do go online and try to find values.

Enjoy and HH!!

 

[JOHNMARKHAM]

humm interesting..i see its not a key date..
hh
john