I have an old half cent and it didn't look very good to me and I put the hand soap to it. No harsh brushing at all, simple washing of a coin like I wash my hands. Now if I ever list the coin for sale do I have to say that it was cleaned? I do not advocate washing or cleaning of coins but is there a link that I can be referred to that cuts to the chase and has a breakdown on what constitutes a cleaning? :thumb:
Cleaning generally involves using solvents - I would generally not have a problem with a coin that was washed using hand soap (it would be essentially no different from any other circulated coin). Some soaps have abrasives mixed in with them though, and many of the common chemicals will react with coins over time (even the water can cause oxidation). Generally, I choose to keep my coins dirty unless there is a corrosion problem.
Soap is pretty much always a bad idea because it leaves behind a residue that you can't get off the coin. That alters the surface. And as I have said more times than I can count, cleaning is not an issue - ever ! Only harsh cleaning is an issue. And harsh cleaning can be defined as any cleaning that alters the surface of the coin. Now apparently a lot of folks don't understand what that means - alters the surface. You can dip a coin and it does not alter the surface (when done correctly). A soak in acetone does not alter the surface. A soak in distilled water does not alter the surface. You can remove all kinds of dirt and grime, even remove toning and not alter the surface. To alter the surface you either have to remove too much metal by over-dipping, or physically move metal on the surface of the coin. Fine hairline scratches such as you get from using a cloth or brush on a coin alters the surface because it moves metal. Even rubbing the coin with your fingers can alter the surface - known as thumbing. Putting oils of any kind on the coin alters the surface. Putting any of many different kinds of chemicals on the coin alters the surface, even household chemicals like mustard, tomato juice, lemon juice, taco sauce etc etc etc - all of these alter the surface. So to answer your question if you alter the surface then the coin will be deemed to have been harshly cleaned. And that's where people get into trouble. Because they don't think that what they are doing alters the surface. Why ? Because they can't see it. But an educated eye, an experienced eye, can see it !
Use "Ivory Soap" and do not rub, and only then pat it dry. This will get rid of dirt and grease on the coin that you find dirty. -O)
Will dipping in silver cleaner be harmful? I had some junk silver that was very dirty and tarnished and after 5-10 seconds in the dip it came clean. All I did was pat it dry.
There's a couple of issues here. First of all you did this with "junk silver". Most people wouldn't bother with junk silver because it's a waste of time. There is no benefit to be received by cleaning the coins. Clean or dirty, you still have junk silver. But the people that do clean junk silver do it for one reason, inevitably it will be because they say "it looks better". Well, it might look better to them, but it certainly doesn't look any better to experienced collectors. It just looks like clean junk silver. Something that is abnormal and undesirable. But if it pleases you to do this, then have at it. You're not really gonna hurt anything in most cases because you started out with dirty junk and you ended up with clean junk. Either way it is still junk. But there are those rare cases where you might have a dirty coin that was actually worth something, and you just don't know it, and by cleaning it with this method you just reduced the value by 80%. Then we have the other issue. Silver cleaner is the same exact thing as a coin dip - it's an acid. And as I have said coin dips can be used, but they must be used correctly. You did not. So all of those coins would now be called harshly cleaned because the acid has eaten away the surface of the coins. When you dip a coin you only dip it in the acid for 1 to 2 seconds at the most. Any longer than that and it harms the coin. But there is more to it, other steps you must take after you dip the coin. You have to neutralize the effects of the dip (acid). For one thing the dip is not evaporative like alcohol or acetone. It has to be removed from the coin or it will continue to eat away at the surface of the coin. And, it can also leave traces behind, this is called dip residue. For as the dip (the acid) disolves the toning, dirt, grime, whatever is on the coin, that material becomes part of the liquid chemical solution. And if it is not removed completely then you will see traces of it on the coin once that solution completely dries. So what you have do is this. Once you dip the coin you then have to dip it again. But this time either in acetone and then distilled water or just distilled water alone. And a quick dip is not what I mean. You have to swish the coin around, rinse it thoroughly in the distilled water, usually two or three different containers of clean distilled water, in order to completely remove all traces of the dip. Then you stand the coin up on edge on a soft towel, lean it against the backsplash, and let it air dry. But there is an even harder step that comes before you do any of this. What I mean by this is that you have to have the necessary experience to be able to judge if the given coin should be dipped at all. In other words you have to be able to look at the coin, with all of the ugly toning on it, and decide if dipping that coin would be of benefit to the coin - or would you end up with something better than what it was by dipping the coin ? You see, dipping a coin and removing ugly or unsightly, and possibly damaging, toning, can reveal things underneath that toning that you might wish you had never seen. There may be lot's of contact marks, hairlines, even scratches, that were covered up by the toning that you couldn't see. But many times an experienced eye can see them, even through the toning. So they would know if the coin was a good candidate for dipping or not. This is something that is very difficult to decide because the only way you can learn how to do this is by doing it, hundreds of times, and learning from the experience. But even for the most experienced person there is, dipping a coin is always a crap shoot. There is always the element of the unknown. Example, you can have say an 1893-S Morgan that is terribly ugly because of unsightly toning. But it is believed that the coin is MS and worth (arbitrary number) $23,000 let's say. The coin looks to have good luster underneath that ugly toning. So the owner decides to dip it and take a chance. Once completed, sure enough the luster is all there and that $23,000 coin is magically turned into a $150,000 gem. Now that's one outcome. The outcome is this. The same MS coin, worth $23,000 in its ugly state, when dipped suddenly reveals that there is wear, making the coin AU, and it is covered with hairlines from an old cleaning. That $23,000 coin just became a $2500 coin as a result of the dipping. Both of these scenarios have actually happened in real life, many times. That's why it's always a crap shoot and why the average collector should never attempt to dip coins on their own.
