Cleaning coins

My father recently passed and left me his coins. He just kept them but never looked at them for errors or varieties. He kept about 20 pounds of lincoln cents in a leather bag. They are now coated with copper scale and crud. Is there any way to safely clean them so that they can be seen clearly. At present stage you cant tell what type coins they are, other than a copper cent.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

You pose a hard question. It is hard to say with no photos. Leather and copper do not fair well together. My knowledge of coins in leather has copper forming a green waxy coating on the surfaces.
If this is your case I would use glass container with a cover and soak them in
denatured alcohol or acetone to try and separate, and dry them out some.
Maybe try a small batch of 20 coins to see what will work best for you.
Doing a few individual coins by hand /Q-tip first, may prove helpful.
Use cautions with flammable liquids at all times.

 

That’s hard to deal with. Photos would help.

 

Good luck with whatever you try, and be sure to post before and after photos (full image) of the results.

 

Here is more info that may be helpful.
http://www.metaldetectingworld.com/cleaning_preservation_coin.shtml

 

It may be less exciting, but I suggest going through the dates/mintmark and only use Verdi-care products on the ones that (1) are "better" dates and/or "better mintmarks AND (2) barely noticeable. Thad and I had similar chemistry interest
along the way and there were a lot of distraction in the early days.I am happy he is
doing so well!! Jim

 

@BadThad I would probably start off by putting the coins in a strainer and pouring boiling water over them a few times to see if that would take anything off.

 

How about boiling water/acetone mix to soak for a short time ( Do not use the microwave or an open flame) ?

 

I have actually used a microwave with ONE coin in the cup of water and it did fine. Two or more and you're asking for trouble!

 

I would first make sure there are no key, semi-key or mint state coins. Those should be conserved individually on their own if present.

 

Not good

 

Oh your a gem

 

I’m fond of badtad as well.

 

I can't picture a way to do this safely without a fume hood and some serious training.

I've boiled acetone before by plopping its container into a bath of almost-boiling water that was heated by something that's now turned OFF. Even then, though, that's a quick concentrated burst of acetone vapor, that's (a) narcotic (in the knock-you-out sense, not the entertain-you sense), (b) super flammable, and (c) dense, which means it can roll along the floor until it finds its way to your refrigerator relay or your clothes dryer or any other spark source. Outdoors, maybe, but even then I'd be looking for alternatives. (Okay, I'd set up a reflux arrangement to condense and return the vapors, but that's because I'm trying to convince my wife to let me keep the organic glassware that's cluttering up the garage...)

 

No pics yet but question would coins not rubbing against the leather, those close to the center of this bundle, would they also be affected or could they remain untouched by the verdigris ?

 

Thanks, I can't imagine pounds of copper and there could have been a 1909-S VDB in there ouch.

 

Put

For verdigris you have to have chloride ion also (I think)