Does anyone recommend it? I have quite a few old coppers in my collection that have verdigris on them.
I've heard some good things , and some not so good things . But the bad things are usually said by people that wouldn't touch a coin even with distilled water . I've never used it , but I'm going to get some and experiment with it . The man who invented it is a collector and chemist from this board .
He should be along shortly. Meanwhile, do a search here because there have been several threads about Vedicare.
It works, but it isn't a miracle cure. And it will not remove all verdigris. Some coins can be helped and others cannot. If you want to know if it can help a given coin then post pics of that specific coin.
Like any good tool, it has as its limits ~ the "operator". If you understand its limits, you will have excellent results and be happy. If you are the type to use paper scissors to try and cut sheet metal, you will call it a failure.
Are their better products that will remove Verdigris? My take on verdigris from what I learned is that it's caused by "acidic elements". Which does not make any sense to me, where are people storing these coins? I have some 1998 cents that have be stored in 2x2s since day 1 and still look fine. I know all verdigris can't be removed, because once it gets going pretty good, it starts to pit the metal itself. It's kind of like rust on steel. A little surface rust can be removed with no damage, but serious rust will leave pitting in the metal, and even holes ( I believe copper can rot out too). I've used mechanical cleaning process on damaged copper coins (bent/holed) and found pitting under areas of heavy verdigris. Also I've been learning to not oil coins with organic oils such as olive or soybean....because I've noticed that the patina on some coppers brightens, due to the slightly acidic makeup of these oils. It's like putting a copper coin in ketchup. Now, while we are talking about different conservation chemicals, a "old school coin collector" I know only uses Vaseline on coins. What good benefit would this have, if any?
Detecto: If he does not respond to this thread soon, send a PM to BadThad with questions about Verdi-Care. If you get no response, he is also active on the coin community forum as well. TC
What about mineral oil? That's another tried method I hear about a lot. I know this sounds weird, but I've heard of people sticking coins with extreme verdigris in a potato, sticking in in the oven for several hours, and it comes out looking much better. Something about the starch.
There's something that I've been thinking about. Verdicare will remove some verdigris, but often not all. With a big bucket of Verdicare, and maybe some paintbrushes, how well could we restore this ol' lady? Would there be any way to restore even some of her copper color, or would Verdicare do absolutely nothing?
to "restore" the copper color to the Statue of Liberty would do irrepearable damage. The green patina is the only protective covering that keeps the copper skin from decay. It does the job so well that when the statue was restored in the '80's they found that the decay on the skin was less than .005 inch and was virtually the only part of the statue that didn't need repair. Richard
Well, 14 years is a lot less time than 140 years. Especially when many of those 14 years were probably spent in air-conditioned, dehumidified comfort, which was rather harder to come by in the early 1900s. Yup. Vegetable oils (and animal fat) are "triglycerides" -- molecules formed by joining one molecule of glycerine and three molecules of organic acids. These oils frequently contain a small amount of free acid; it's not terribly strong as acids go, but it doesn't take much to start attacking copper. There are frequently other damaging contaminants as well (damaging to coins, not so much to diners). Mineral oils are different chemically, and wouldn't attack metal the same way. I'll leave it to GDJMSP and BadThad to fight over what exactly they do or don't do to coins.
Ok, so even if you're causing damage, and start the decaying, could it be done? Even if she crumbles soon after? Verdicare works in some cases, and doesn't work in some cases. Where does the Statue of Liberty fall? Would it get some of the verdigris off?
my experience with verdi-care is that always gets some off. given enough product and a container big enough to soak it in i imagine it would remove some of the patina. Good luck finding a non PVC flip to store it in.....
There are plenty of chemicals that will get the verdigris off, and off completely. And yes that applies to the statue too. But the point is, that Vedicare was invented with the idea that it will not cause harm to the coin. And that is why that sometimes it only gets some of the verdigris off. Other times it will get all of the verdigris off. The defining factor is the severity of the verdigris. If you used a harsher, stronger chemical, you could get every single speck of verdigris off of a coin. But if you did then you would also harm the coin because the chemical would eat into the copper. Verdicare will not eat into the copper. And let's say they did clean all the verdigris off the statue, making it a pretty copper color again. In one day, that copper color would start changing, the copper would begin to tone. And in 10 years, it would look exactly as it did before it was cleaned.
