Not JUST Another "cleaning" Thread

Coin doctoring? Sure I guess. Potato, patoto. You say doctoring I say conservation. At the end of the day they are both CLEANED.
Would you rather have a corroded spesimen that will continue to deteriorate or an improved stable one that looks appealing?

You are correct. It would not CAC because the surfaces are recolored. NGC knows this and STILL straight grades them, a lot of early copper has been cleaned and recolored and NGC has made the choice to grade them.

You are entitled to your opinion. I will be posting pictures of the coin when I get home.

Another note, I am not doing this to DECEIVE anyone, I am purely doing this to stabilize coins in my own collection. I have no intent to ever sell these coins, and if I did I would be sure to clearly mark that the surfaces had been altered.

 

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Sigh.

Again, post the Piece(s) .... since you now indicate there is more than one in an NGC Holder.

I don't care if you are doing it for Daffy Duck, and leaving a Notice inside the Family Bible that informs the world the surfaces have been altered. Your actions are deceitful.

So, l suggest a path to settle this: post the NGC encapsulated pieces, with serial number and Grade, and I will contact NGC on your behalf and refer to this Thread. You should not have any issue with that, since you are not deceitful and just want to preserve history for the World.

You should be proud of you honorable gift. Share it!!

If you had nothing but love for the hobby, why didn't you submit for conservation? You paid for encapsulation, did you not?



The moment you submitted to NGC, you were and are deceitful, and you harm the Hobby.

 

Holier than thou are we? *insert giant eyeroll here*

 

Coins4Eli, I wanted to be helpful and let the collecting community know of your selfless contributions to the hobby, so I have referred NGC, PCGS, and CAC to your comments in this Thread. There is no need to do so for Insider's entity, since he reads and posts here all the time.

 

oh PLEASE post your messages to them and thier responses. I'm sure they have nothing better to do with thier time than to come on a forum and investigate what some self appointed coin hall monitor is upset by. What are they gonna do, send out the Numismatic SWAT team?

As far as insider, I surely can not and would not speak for him. His opinion and knowledge I greatly respect. But I'll just leave this here and note that surely NGC employs people that "could tell" if something was awry.

 

I'd like to move back to the original post - I respect your opinion, but I am not interested in debating whether or not a coin should be cleaned. I recognize what it does and I would never do this to my entire collection. But, like @Coins4Eli it is for my own personal benefit and no one else's. And, in my case, only on the coins that have no (limited) value beyond face value and do not provide "joy" (for me) as they are too dark to read easily in their present state.

 

Fine, fine. Are you planning on submitting or have you submitted an purposefully enhanced piece to a TPG or 4PG?

If the answers is "no", then your choice is not remotely the same as Eli. Eli knowingly deceived a TPG (according to him/her) but, I call baloney that he/she did so, until he/she posts the NGC encapsulated pieces with the serial number shown.

I don't need you to respect my opinion, and I am not interested in debating your artistic need to artificially color a coin for your enjoyment. That has nothing to do with cleaning, nor does Eli's purposeful deceit.

 

Always check the SDS (Safety info)
https://aervoe.com/_files/msds/EzEst Coin Cleaner 1985 - US Bulk.pdf

https://www.msdsdigital.com/ms70-msds

CopperCoins (?)
https://www.reliablecorp.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Sterling-Silver_Coin-Silver-SDS.pdf

 

God Morning, Eli. Have you returned home yet, so you can post the self- doctored pieces that you sent to NGC and NGC passed and graded? Don't forget to show the serial numbers.

 

So you see the basic advice to newbies is to not clean. Many cling to this their whole collecting careers. That's fine. But I think there is value in experimenting on low value coins. Get a can of EZest and some 1964 quarters. Find one that is lustrous but shows a trace of fingerprint appearing.
Give it a quick dunk and rinse it.
How many times can you dip it before the luster is compromised?
Dip an XF coin. Doesn't look right does it, with obvious wear but all shiny.
Dilute the dip with water and try that.
What will the dip do to a heavily toned coin. Etc Etc

It's educational if nothing else. If you know precisely what was done to a coin you will recognize the same look in other coins, even in a straight graded slab.

Now I agree, most of us should not be dipping coins that are valuable or of historical significance. This is something you work up to...learning to identify a coin that can take a dip, the best product and procedure. And even the experts have poor results sometimes.
JMO, I know some will not agree with me, but since the OP seems interested in pursuing this, I put my opinion out there.

 

It'll only be a better guess unless you can somehow know if it's been previously dipped.

 

The hard part about this topic is being able to look at a coin and knowing if the coin can be helped. That's not something you learn overnight and every coin is different. The same process will not work on every coin.

NCS and ICG are the best in my opinion. They know when to say no, the coin should not be messed with. At the same time they know when something should be done to protect the coin.

Sometimes it's sad with a valuable coin. It may need help but all that will do is to stop further damage. That can be a tough choice.
It's not easy to sell an ugly raw coin and conservation is the best choice. Even a details holder will help make it possible to market a coin. The buyer has a better understanding of the coin and may be willing to live with the problem.

I have no problem with those that wish to play around with coins that are only worth face value. Not a bad way to start learning but many take it too far and start working on coins with much more value.
That never seems to work out well.

 

A circ find, this coin was one that I would have laughed at if it had a sale price on it. Roll find. It had layers of corrosion on it. I have no qualms at giving this a water and acetone bath. Acetone soak and running hot water rinse. Finished with distilled water soak, and pat dry. Don't be afraid to roll a qtip with the metal flow. Center to rim. Never rub, if you have too it will go details.
Also, Larry said it best learning to clean comes with bad results, there are many coins that should never be touched and will be ruined. It's very rare that acetone should be used because it may make problems that you were unaware of present. An acceptable coin just went cleaned or details.
I think this is a business strike and not an SMS, and the only reason I created a new skin. AU at best.

 

Eli, Eli, Lama Sabachthani?

 

I agree with most of what you said, but I take exception with this part. A coin that's been given an acetone bath will not come back cleaned or details unless the coin would have already have come back that way. Acetone doesn't/Can't alter the metal.

 

Acetone is an organic solvent, and is effective at removing organic gunk that sometimes accumulates in the devices of older circulated coins, as well as less visible pollutants that can collect on the surfaces of raw coins over time, even uncirculated coins. Acetone only interacts with substances ON the coin, not the coin itself, so, despite claims to the contrary, it doesn’t alter the coin in any way.

Xylene is another organic solvent that can be used as an alternative to acetone. I’m not a chemist and can’t expound on the differences, but it’s been said on this forum that if you use acetone and it doesn’t work, then try xylene, and vice-versa.

In my experience, acetone (and xylene) can be safely used to remove foreign matter from silver, copper, and cupro-nickel coins without having any effect on the surfaces of the coins themselves and without changing the color of the coins. So, it’s not going to give you the bright, shiny look I think you’re seeking.

Bronze coins might be another matter.

I had two bronze coins — a 1958 Ghana penny and a 1930s British India ¼ anna — come out of acetone baths with mottled coloring and a slightly pink-ish hue in places (sorry, I didn’t photograph or keep the coins). So it begs the question if the tin content was a factor. The Ghana coin is said to be 1.5% zinc, so maybe that was a factor too. From that point on, I started with xylene on any bronze coin that needed to be de-gunked, just to play it safe.

I have no experience with these. If you’re curious, buy some and experiment with coins that have no collector value.

Distilled water won’t do much beyond dislodging common dirt. As for removing the "dark/almost black" patina, there’s nothing I know of that will restore the “fresh from the mint” look to copper and bronze coins. Anything you do to remove it will give you a coin that looks like this:

 

@Maxfli Thank you for all the information! And yes, that's how the two British pennies I cleaned look - I want to avoid that. Though yours looks better than mine does. It just looks fake :/

But, maybe you're right- there's nothing really that will do it right. It may be a choice between bright or natural hue.

 

I didn't say that it would. One does have to read the surfaces and understand that they will be exposing surface conditions that may have not been seen. The coin above looks too clean for the surface conditions it has. It will take years for it to get a skin back and be deemed acceptable.

 

Unless it has bronze disease or something of the sort, patinas are our friends.


Aside from the unappealing artistic issues, this coin of Heraclius came from a scarce military mint which I had wanted for a long time. While this one was 'nice' for the type, the stripped patina (perhaps they had to clear up some corrosion issues?) made it less appealing to own. Yes, there are faux patination kits and someone who's good at it can achieve great results, but I'm incompetent with chemicals.


Which is more appealing (artistic differences aside)? The naturally patinated one.

That being said, the coin conservators had to learn from practice. I suppose it wouldn't hurt on inexpensive test coins.

 

Yes, I agree removing things like verdigris, possibly pvc gunk, and other "deposits" can be risky business in the sense you may expose some ugly material below it. Personally I'd rather have a stable coin without the nasty crud on it. But then again nothing I have is very pricey or rare.