Conservation Showcase: Turkish 20 Kurush dated AH 1293, Year 2 (1876)

BEFORE CONSERVATION
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AFTER CONSERVATION
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Green is typically a color we don’t want to see on our coins. Green is the indicator of a coin going bad. Green is the indicator of PVC residue and green is the indicator of corrosion. One of the more frequent requests we receive at NCS is to remove the green from a coin.

This silver Turkish 20 Kurush dated AH 1293, Year 2 (translates to 1876) was submitted to NCS in the hopes that the green might be removed. The challenge with circulated coins such as this is that we must be careful to remove the dangerous residues while trying to retain a pleasant look to the coin after the conservation. With this coin NCS conservators were able to carefully remove the unattractive and potentially dangerous green residues and leave the coin with the slight tone one would expect of a circulated coin of this vintage. After conservation this coin was able to grade numerically with NGC.