After hours of reading up on acetone + Lincoln cents over the past week I finally picked a can up at a hardware store near me and have been fooling around with some pocket change just to see how it reacts before I try it on anything half decent... Anyways I read through the whole long thread from a few years back on acetone and it's reactions (or lack there of) to copper and wanted to get an opinion on the decision making process between the risk(if any) vs reward of either dipping or using a qtip on a coin like this; or just leaving it be. Obviously after reading the threads I should be able to make the decision on my own but I'd just like to get some outside input to try and tie everything together. This 1958 had the best luster, least marks overall, and probably WOULD have been the highest grade I found in an old BU roll, however the oxidation killed it (at least I suspect it did). It appears to be contaminated with some small substance seen in the center of the spot on Lincolns Head. Now I'm not sure if it would be considered natural oxidation or irreversible oxidation, or if parts of it have potential to be saved and others aren't worth it? I guess what I'm asking is; is it possible to remove the marks (or even some)with acetone without ruining the luster? Would the spotting effect the grade more than any negative results of the acetone(removing luster/tone/adding any hue)? How much would this type of spotting effect the otherwise high MS- as in one step down, two steps etc? Then also just for future knowledge- and I know it's only speculation- what would anyone roughly grade this at? Both with the spots, and without the spots(assuming the spots never existed)? It's definitely easy to look at examples of pictures from past auctions, going for big money and saying "psh I totally have one that's cleaner than that one".. at this point I'm trying to learn to weed out my gut feelings from the facts/evidence.
Acetone only works on organic stuff that adheres to the surface of the coin. If the metal has reacted then it really doesn't do anything. Other than a few very specialized cases (I haven't read the articles, but I trust the comments of the CT Chemists) which you are unlikely to encounter, acetone will have not affect toning. However, the toning under any removed residue may be different than the rest of the exposed coin, so it may appear to look different. It looks like the copper has started to react (corrode) on your coin, so I don't think acetone will have any effect.
Okay looks like we both have the same understanding on the subject. With that said, I just went over the last few coins I dipped in the acetone overnight. In theory I understand that the acetone would remove any organic layer to reveal a potentially different tone beneath- is that what I'm seeing here in these 6? The toning is noticibly more vibrant/colorful, is that considered as common or as "altered toning"? With this batch I soaked for 8ish hours then went over each one by one with a q tip to pick up any residues left behind. When directly pulled from the dip and air dried the surface was slightly fogged, but then dampening/going over again with the qtip cleared it to a bright shine however also revealed the vibrant color. Would the qtip leave the coloring or is that just an example of acetone revealing a new surface below the organic stuff that was removed? Reluctantly I don't have any pictures at the same angles to show any toning from before dipping, but that's only because I didn't notice anything special in the tone aside from a higher luster on them. I suppose I was more surprised with the result being the way they came out, and wasn't sure if it was a negative outcome vs leaving them how they were before.
