Extreme copper cleaning

Questions have been asked about the best ways to clean coins. Looking at the issue from the other end of the spectrum I decided to test the worst ways to clean. I took four average brown 1950s Lincoln Cents and used four methods to clean them.

The 1952 was cleaned by blasting it with a 3 to 1 mixture of glass beads and aluminum oxide. The 1955 was cleaned with a wire brush in a Dremel tool running at 20,000 RPM. The 1950S was given a 5 minute soak in a 32% solution of Hydrochloric Acid. Finally, the 1956 was soaked for 5 minutes in Sodium Hydroxide.

The glass beads took off all the dirt and corrosion but left the surface with a heavy matte finish. The wire brush/Dremel made it nice and shiney but left a lot of little scratches on the surface. The HCl ate into the copper but left a bit of dirt/corrosion unaffected. The NaOH did little in the way of cleaning but it seemed to leave the appearance of verdigreen where there was none to begin with.

Conclusion: None of these methods appear to provide an acceptable result.

 

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I've thrown coins in my fish tank and they came out nicer than that!:thumb:

 

you may want to try a different method.

 

They do look pretty bad.

 

I don't know, the whizzed one looks pretty good. If you practice enough, you might be able to make an AU coin look BU and sell them on E-Bay for a tidy profit. While you are experimenting, I bet you could make your E-Bay user name THEWHIZZER and I bet they would still buy them.

 

That's was pretty funny Lehigh. Two more and a hat trick for you.

 

I agree, I got a hardy belly roar:goofer:

 

a method I have found and it doesnt scratch the surface and is inexpensive is to use good ole Louisianna hot sauce! It takes about 3-5 minutes of soaking and wiped off with a dry towel. personnally I prefer the original look of the coin. It shows the natural wear and tear of the coin and where its been.

 

Good grief man have you no Honour how could you use good hot sauce like that, what a tragic waste

 

THEWHIZZER!

LOLZ...

OP: Did you expect satisfactory results from any of those methods? I appreciate your scientific approach, not to mention your access to exotic methods of cleaning, but I think you knew ahead of time none of those would work all too well.

 

it was just a suggestion!

 

Hot Sauces are sacred to the gods, to missuse them brings instant retribution in the way of gut ache LOL

 

You kind of missed a lot of interesting findings by not allowing the left over solutions to evaporate. Your best reaction would be with Sulfuric Acid though. That one will disolve the coin completely and through careful evaporation processes you could end up with a fantastic Translucent Blue/Green Crystal. The shape would be consistant for all such compounds of Cupric Sulfate and should be rather a parallelogram. Note as you disolve Copper coins in almost anything it will form an electrovalent substance that will crystalize if left to evaporate. However, due to some possibilities of impurities you must filter the final solution and use a consistant temperature for the evaporation.
Have you tried just shooting one out of the air like in the old West Movies?

 

Poor old Abe!

True whizzers use glass wool and not a metal brush, give that one a shot.

 

Rut Roh..

 

I lean towards the easy-off oven cleaner

 

What is that a 55 double-die LOL Imagine.

 

Basically what you have done there is an acid soak in acetic acid rather than hydrochloric acid. Leave you with an unnatural appearance to the copper.

 

one can use acetic acid on cooper coins without destroying them?

 

It would be best to do anything else besides resurrecting a 12 year old thread.