Before and After Cleaning

OOOOK, now I see the "Bingo was his name-o", just didn't know what he meant at first. Reminds me of when someone here posted about buying silver dollars at a game show and when he went back to pick them up, the seller was burnishing them with a pencil eraser "Because it doesn't hurt them and really makes them look nice."

On the subject of baking soda, there would be two options, dissolving the baking soda and using the solution or using it as a paste.

 

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Lemon juice and then distilled water, or maybe olive oil and then distilled water.

 

With argu... arugi... lettuce?

 

Consider this:

!. Baking soda is abrasive. Most people who use it on their coins will ruin them!
2. Rookies should never let baking soda near a coin unless it is in a solution used to neutralize it.
3. I consider the OP a rookie (lacking the experience of his dealer) and I am 98% sure there are microscopic hairlines on his coins.
4. His coins are not harshly cleaned. The sooner the folks around here learn the different degrees of cleaning and what a truly harshly cleaned coin looks like, I can stop throwing up when I read the posts about cleaning.

Now that I have your attention, I'm going to let you in on a little testing that was done inside a conservation lab. I don't expect you to believe what I write (I DID NOT at first) and I don't particularly care how uninformed you wish to remain. Nevertheless, this is a fact:

When baking soda is applied in the proper consistency using certain well-known methods that have been passed down for decades to clean a coin, it is virtually undetectable. I can say this because I was formerly one of the ignorant, unbelievers, who was invited to see several silver coins conserved ONLY because I boasted that baking soda would ruin the coins! I was allowed to bring my stereo microscope to the facility and watched the entire process. After all that, I smugly sat down to prove the technician was an ignorant darn fool. After at least six minutes using high power magnification I had to apologize , eat crow , and transfer some $$$ for the lost bet! I looked at all the coins and none had hairlines.

I don't know the expertise of the OP's dealer. So believe it or not, I can state for a fact that, baking soda is used on occasion to conserve coins either to remove single spots or larger areas.

Now, go out and buy a BU silver eagle. Divide the coin up into four sections on each side so you have eight areas to practice on. Make a paste of soda and distilled water and play around until you can "work" the coin and leave no trace. Or am I trolling all of you... Only the wise know for sure.

PS So far, to the best of my knowledge, baking soda is not effective on the majority of milk spots and stains on SE.

 

On the MOH scale, the hardness of baking soda is 2.5; the hardness of Au and Ag is 2.5-3.0 and Cu is 3.0

It MAY be safe to use baking soda to clean your coins but you're right on the edge of damage. Whatever you use to apply the baking soda will probably do the damage.

 

I would say... do NOT use baking soda period. it will scratch the coin.