Loving the Unloved: Exfoliating Large Cent is Terrifying

The pioneering large cent cataloger, William Sheldon, waxed romantic about the wonderful colors that adorn old copper coins. In an oft-quoted passage, he remarked in Penny Whimsy that large cents were as beautiful as fall foliage. I have quoted this one before, but it is worth repeating.
   As he put it: "You see rich shades of green, red, brown, yellow, and even deep ebony; together with blending of these not elsewhere matched in nature save perhaps in autumn leaves."
   But what happens when those autumn leaves begin to fall to the ground?
   Dear William did not wait around for this. His colorful cents were largely smooth pieces with little to no build-up of corrosion products -- the stuff that shouts out in a rush of color that the end is near.
   No, he shunned these honest pieces that tell it like it is. As such, his cents were not so colorful in my opinion. Or very interesting.
   Here is one of my favorite cents. It shouts. The blue-green accumulation of carbonates and sulfates is flaking off. Underneath, a raw layer of cuprite remains. The fiery surface is rough like an open wound: pink, red, and brown. It makes me cringe just to look at it. The cent -- if it had been left in the dirt -- would have deteriorated quickly from this point.
   This is what happens to autumn leaves when they fall and rot in a heap.
   Perhaps this is why dear William -- RIP -- did not have any corroded large cents. In fact, he went through extraordinary lengths in upgrading his collection to avoid them.
   Maybe he found corroded cents terrifying, as nothing lasts forever.
   Corroded cents are terrifying! As Charles Dickens described it: ruins possess an "awful beauty."