Is it safe to preserve a coin?

Noah it's pretty simple, if it involves putting a substance on the coin to protect them - don't do it.

You protect your coins with proper storage methods - nothing else.

 

A lot of folks will tell ya lot of things, especially copper collectors. Why ? Because copper is the most reactive of our coinage metals, and it corrodes rather easily - when proper storage methods are not used ! But when they are used, the coins are as safe as a babe in it's mother's arms

That said, you also have to wonder if perhaps today's EAC copper collectors are not doing something very similar to what the generation the generation of copper collectors before them did. Those guys, well it was commonplace to coat your copper coins with lacquer and shellac back then. And when it was happening, it was all the rage. Of course we now know how many of them went through the laborious process of removing all that from the coins and that pretty much nobody does it anymore because now they know better !

And then ya have things like the fact that if Blue Ribbon, or similar products, are put on coins and then those coins are sent to NGC or PCGS and their sniffer is used on them - then the coins will be put in problem coin slabs, and designated as being ungradeable.

And then have those troubling little things like Blue Ribbon being one of the coin doctor's favorite tools, the tool he uses to get his copper coins over-graded because the oil in Blue Ribbon, when properly applied, adds that highly desirable "lustrous" look that oh so many copper collectors deeply love ! And of course the TPG graders don't catch it because most of the coins submitted are not sent through the sniffer so that the chemicals and oils can be detected by the machines, and the graders, well they're fooled by the coin doctors again just as they have been so many times over the years.

So yeah, go ahead and chock another one up for the coin docs, they're good at what they do. And while you're at it chock another one down for the collectors for they will be fooled into paying grossly inflated prices for grossly over-graded coins - just as they have been for years now with the artificially toned coins produced by those very same coin docs ! My, my, my - aren't chemicals wonderful

Now bear in mind, I'm not saying that Blue Ribbon won't help protect the coins - it will. Just like the lacquer and shellac did in decades gone by. But you should also realize that dipping your copper coins in the 30 weight that you use in your cars and trucks - it'll do the very same thing and protect just as well. For a time anyway. Ya see, over time oil breaks down, it gets all gunky and globby looking, and then ya gotta clean it off, carefully I might add, and start all over again with a fresh coat. So anybody that wants to use Blue Ribbon - have at it !

Oh, one last thing. You do know don't you that they quit making Blue Ribbon years ago. Ever wonder why that might be ?

Like I started out with, lots of folks will tell ya lots of things. But me, I'm kinda like Paul Harvey, I tell ya "the rest of the story".


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PS - will one of you older gents kindly tell the whippersnappers who Paul Harvey is/was !

 

Sure do, I remember it well since I started using it to make gunpowder by the time I was 6 and nitro by the time I was 8