Need Help With Cents that Need Cleaning Badly

I can live with that. You could soak the cents en masse in some acetone, changing it if it gets colored and probing at any gunk with a q-tip. Follow this up with water and a distilled water rinse. If you see any that are worth more work, VerdiCare is the responsible solution (if there is one).

 

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Others have responded before me, but I highly doubt it is PVC. PVC stands for polyvinyl chloride and there is no sulfur in PVC. Given that the coins were most likely randomly placed into the bank then we would likely be looking at verdigris or simple corrosion, unless the bank was made with plasticizers. Acetone may do wonders for PVC, but it won't work the same for verdigris or corrosion.

 

"Need Help With Cents that Need Cleaning Badly"

Send em to me, I can clean em pretty badly

 

I'd try to ID them first before you try any type of cleaning. Not the other way around.

 

Its really not worth your time to do anything to try to clean them.

If you want to experiment on a couple of the green coins, which is most likely verdigris, don't worry about hurting the coin, the damage is already done. There are several products on the market, some have already been mentioned above. A product you may already have in your home is Olive Oil.

Verdigris is the common name for a greenpigment obtained through the application of acetic acid to copper plates[2] or the naturalpatina formed when copper, brass or bronze is weathered and exposed to air or seawater over a period of time. It is usually a basiccopper carbonate, but near the sea will be a basic copper chloride.[3] If acetic acid is present at the time of weathering, it may consist of copper(II) acetate.

If the green is PVC you can remove the PVC with acetone, most hardware stores will have it in pure form.

Keep in mind once you see green on copper, brass, or bronze the corrosion is already there and the surface of the metal has been eaten away. The best you can do is stop the corrosion from future damage, you can not replace, restore, re-anything the metal that is already gone.

 

Here is my 2 cents worth.....and its always worked great for me-when needed
coat a glass casserole dish with tin foil........layer it with baking soda
put the coins in and layer them with baking soda........heat water to BOILING HOT
put the water over to top of all of them.....let the water cool to room temp, then GENTLY with your fingers rub the baking soda on the coins-NOT DRY
I have always had great luck-hope that helps!

 

Okay. I knew that method but I only thought it worked on silver.

 

This will kill any value the coin may have.

 

Okay.

 

Everyone has an opinion and their results..........IM NOT telling you to do it!
Just wanted to toss out an idea that has worked for me
Cleaning in general is not good but just to get GUNK off, try ONE penny!
If Im wrong I will send you a penny-as long as its not a 1909 VDB! LOL

 

Lol. Any, besides a 1909 VDB, still a large expensive variety lol.

 

Wi would only clean if they were going to be in my personal collection.

 

Not just an opinion. It's a fact. Rubbing a coin with anything is a really bad idea.

 

True

 

Unless the coin were wrapped in a shower curtain, what you have is simple verdigris. The odds of there being any PVC are astronomical since they came from a "piggy bank". More than likely, they are all common coins and not worth cleaning.

Acetone will not remove verdigris. Using it on these coins would be a complete waste of time and money. The best you can do is look through them and see if you can identify any key or semi-key dates. Then come back and talk about the possibility of removing the verdigris.

 

1916 in a VG- VF state

 

The "sticky gunk" is almost certainly not PVC residue. What it is is old oxidized skin oils.