Proper acetone procedure

I do live in the desert but I am not sure if this collection has always lived in the desert. Perhaps it has and that's why even the oldest coins have only minor greenish damage on them because the sheets are extremely old and brittle so I'm sure the coins have spent several decades resting in them. Thanks for the tip on latex instead of nitrile when I do the acetone dip. Do you think the nitrile gloves are Ok simply for handling the coins without acetone? The Buffalo Nickels, for example, don't seem to need any cleaning, but I need to transfer them to new flips and/or album sheets.

Also, I think what you were trying to say is it's not just PVC that causes this issue, but palsticizers in general. If this is the case, can you make any recommendations on flips or album sheets to use or to avoid? Are there other ingredients I should try to avoid besides just PVC?

 

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Yes, it is a nice find, thank you! I'm very excited about it! And if I paid her a bit more than a dealer would have, I'm ok with that. I wasn't trying to take advantage, I was trying to be fair, so I determined melt value based on current spot price, and then talked to a trusted local coin & metals dealer as well as researched online to see what a typical discount % would be for a dealer buying junk silver from an individual.

This seemed fair to me considering that (1) she wouldn't be able to go down the street to a business to get a better deal than what I was offering; (2) the possibility that there might be a special coin in there somewhere; and (3) how inexpensive silver currently is in terms of both historical prices and the gold-to-silver ratio. Frankly, my husband and I were going to purchase more silver in some form this month anyway, so this neat coin collection seemed like a great opportunity to add something different and interesting to our stacks.

Thanks for the anecdote about your 200-year old silver coins staying in acetone so long -- I appreciate that info. And yes, definitely acetone from the hardware store -- I'm a stickler for understanding ingredients in all things I touch or consume, and nail polish remover is never pure acetone.

 

A person could have a chemist test it. Some recycling facilities have the labs as Americans are not very good at separating their recyclables ( most Asian countries won't take them anymore to reuse), but basically most just assume the producer verifies what they have in MSDS sheets which can sometimes be found on the webpages. You use to be able to tell by the "shower curtain" smell of fresh plasticizers, but the Asian countries reduced the amount.

Jim

 

This is what you need to get started.

 

Researching each coin, one by one is all you can do. If you buy the book above, it will take a few seconds to look up each coin.
The coins in the images have PVC problems. If you put the coins in new holders without cleaning off the PVC, you will want to throw the new holders away when you do clean off the PVC.

 

Since you are a person who knows nothing about coins or how to clean them, whomever told you to start with the valuable coins first is so misinformed that I'd advise you to block him in anything else he posts in this thread. You will possibly ruin a few coins while you learn.

 

That would be me Skip. Thank you for the kind words. I didn't figure the lady would do any harm with acetone. Skip, I'll leave the thread. Maybe you can help here with better ideas.

 

I sincerely appreciate your concern for the coin collection and proper procedure to protect it. Fortunately, I can assure you that it was already my plan to test out some acetone procedures on low-value coins before applying a procedure to high-value coins.

I suspect what you meant by earlier comments was that I should identify the high-value coins and focus on restoring those first, rather than wasting my time restoring hundreds of low-value coins. I did not think that you necessarily meant that I should just dive right into applying a reactive chemical process on my most valuable coins without having any experience with the process or the chemicals. Your approach to processing the collection is wise and I value your suggestion -- it did help me to look at the collection in a new light and come up with an approach to tackle such a huge project.

I also sincerely appreciate your suggestion for that coin guide -- it's already in my Amazon cart! Internet research has been great, but I'm a fanatic about having hard resources as well, so this will be a great addition to my ever-growing home library.

I suspect you are quite right about the Olympic-sized pool, as I have now begun the process of evaluating the coins and I feel I have only scratched the surface over the course of at least 24 hours of focused time! And yes, you are correct in assessing that I am a decent swimmer -- I may not know much about this particular pool YET, but I'm well-educated, highly analytical, a critical thinker, detail-oriented, process-oriented, a life-long learner, and a knowledge-seeker. These traits have served me well all my life and I'm sure they won't let me down this time!

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Thank you ALL so much for your experienced viewpoints and suggestions! I'm very excited about this acquisition and the subsequent evaluation and restoration project, and I'm sure I'll have many more specific questions as I work my way through it!

 

You sound a bit like you're in a job interview. You also sound like you're born to this hobby. (This from a fellow analytical, detail-oriented knowledge seeker, who's married to another one, and raising two more.)

Welcome aboard!

 

Thank you. Based on your post, I figured you would understand what I was saying. Insider didn't bother to read what you or I posted before he posted. I'm used to his ways and how he treats folks on this forum.
If I can be of any help, please let me know. Hope you find something really cool in the collection.

 

I understood clearly SO I'll repeat my post although the OP did not need it:

DON'T start w/valuable coins! Furthermore, I would not touch any of them without the instruction of a knowledgeable numismatist who has demonstrated they know how to clean coins. Many coin dealers qualify but it is a crap shoot.

 

That looks like my Roth IRA over this year...

 

I'd pick up that Red Book, as Larry suggested, and see if there's anything there worth better than junk silver, preferably even some worth grading. That's where I'd start. On the use of the acetone, that's not going to hurt them, particularly in this condition, but then neither is it going to make them sparkle like diamonds. Basically it's just good for removing tapes, glues, and other such sticky stuff, and, of course, polish from nails. Beyond that, in terms of restoring them, there's really not much else you can do with them.

 

If you have some superglue you sometimes use , keep at least a small bottle of acetone around to unglue your fingers from the object you thought you holding together so well as the glue set Been there ...

 

Hi Everyone.

So, I'm waking up this old post again because I'm trying to find information on getting rid of toning on copper and silver coins/rounds/medals.

From everything I read above (and I've read ALL 16 PAGES!) Acetone is not going to remove the toning on silver and copper. So, what will?

 

Another question in response to this particular post. How do graders not do damage to coins if they handle them with their bare hands? What about fingerprints and all the natural oils on our hands? And they could put a fingerprint on a coin.

 

Lol. Mine too, except it ended higher due to buying a bunch of GM in March and selling it when it doubled. Made some good money (high % increases) on other deals, too, like Ford, Inseego and Netgear. Normally, I stick with mutual or index funds, but I saw how far these dropped, and/or the increased use of all things internet, so I used some of the money I had sitting on the sidelines.
Up 20.04% YTD.


Edit: Darn it. Just realized his post was from last year, lol.

 

Acid dips (like E-Z-Est) remove toning from silver, but can also damage coin surfaces.

The same is true of electrolytic cleaning (dissolve baking soda in water, put the coin in it on a piece of aluminum foil).

I don't know of any way to remove toning from copper without leaving it an unnatural bright-pink color. I've seen rumors that it's possible, but the methods aren't public knowledge AFAIK.