corroded cents - do they corrode other cents?

If you hoard your change what would happen if you took various levels of corroded cents and stored them with other noncorroded cents? Does that stuff start growing on the others around it, and in some time the entire container would be one big green and black fest?

For instance, coins like this? Should they be stored or just spent back into the wild and not kept with the better ones ?

 

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Keep the 1982 and the 2 Cents showing the shields.. The rest throw in the garbage!

 

Why would you want to store them?!

 

I keep all my change.
Habit thing.

A few times I'll take some for parking meters and other misc stuff. But not very often.

 

even the 1969?
Saliva wouldn't kleen it ? hahahaha

 

I would assume, under the right conditions, like moisture present, that organic matter would eventually migrate. I can tell you for certain that zinc rot will eventually travel and infect other coins. Especially so in sealed rolls. I've been there and it is not pretty.

 

I don't have any data or chemistry information to prove it, but I strongly believe that chemical corrosion like this can spread via contact. Copper and zinc are very reactive, so once corrosion starts it could be a problem.

 

Guess I'll separate the sickies from the well cents

thanks guys

 

Spend them. Yes, you can infect other coins.

 

I could assure anyone looking at the cents in the photo that water was involved. Migration of the metallic bound atoms can not migrate~ copper into zinc or v.v. , nor sulfur ions, nor other common corrosion chemical does not occur without water, or heat greater than life can live, crushing magnetic fields, explosions, etc. etc ( Radioactivity not counted). Keep the coins at a temperature close to your own, don't shoot copper coated bb, or larger into the coins, throw some sacrificial copper zincolns in the zip lock bag, seal well and put into safe keeping with dehydrating chemicals outside the ziplock but within the safe/box and you will migrate into corrosion before they do. Do recharge the desiccators and replace the sacrificial coins. Getting rid of water is the key!

I think this idea of contact corrosion, etc. got started with cute names such as "bronze's disease" . "zinc rot" etc. Even desert sand has some moisture. If your house can support mold, you are in trouble. IMO Jim

 

They will never be worth more than face value. Just spend them.

 

I added a new separation bucket so as not to infect everything else.

 

For me, each safe has a dehumidifier that gets recharged regularly.
additionally, each "set" of whatever is in a sealed container which in itself contains a small rechargeable dehumidity packet. They should be plenty dry.

 

I use a small electric safe heater that is just enough to constitute a difference in outside temperature and hence, no moisture. Least that's what I read somewhere.

 

Do you mean a Dihumidifier Rod (Dri-Rod) ?

picture / link ?

 

Yes exactly.

 

And your opinion is quite correct about "contact corrosion" Jim. My 1982 cents were stored in less than ideal conditions way back, in my cellar and before I installed a dehumidifier. And in their original paper rolls. I should have chosen my words more carefully. The 1982 zinc cents were not made well and even the smallest defect in the plating would cause many if not most of these cents of mine to rot away (due to the moisture present). It was a hard learned lesson in proper storage.

 

Zinc cents are the devil, anything they touch gets destroyed.

 

On another note. I took a look at one of my containers probably from 2001ish which just was a dump of coins. I recall at one time it getting wet from a water pipe bursting. I can't recall how I could have dried them.

But here's the outcome.
The collection of coins


and I pulled out a bunch that aren't in such great condition

 

but just for preservation and prevention of further corrosion junk, should I just use stuff like Lighthouse Copper cleaning solution, Acetone, Xylene, or some other home grown cleaner ?