How do I store my ancient coins..... for a hurricane?

@RAGNAROK —He's okay—he posted last evening. So many of our great forum members have been impacted by the disastrous weather. All came through it but some are really struggling with the effects and aftermath.

 

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Thanks DRay!

 

Anyone heard from @Eduard yet?

 

He posted this morning.

 

My thoughts and prayers go to all CTers who faced storms. My family was fortunate, but several close friends were not as lucky. We had half a dozen from my coin club who took on water. Several other coin collectors and dealers in the area are dealing with water. I have a few pics of the recovery process.
Our church was spared water problems, but we did loose a tree... and a wood pecker lost a home.


A friend who is a coin dealer lives on the downstream side of the Barker Cyprus reservoir. Some of you may have heard of this one. They did not flood due to direct rain, but to water released from the flood control dam. Their flooding started after much of the rain fell and just got back in their homes. The pics below are part of the coin recovery process. How do you clean coins that have been under run-off water for a week. The process is a bit like cleaning ancient coins.

• remove paper covers
• separate the sheep from the goats or maybe the salvageable from the cash value only items
• crack em out of their plastic holders (at least for US mint products).. I wore my special shirt for this (thanks to TIF!)
• for silver, paper money, clad coins and nickels; soak them in distilled water or light alcohol, we used isopropyl
• blot them dry with a towel and let them air dry a bit
• repackage them
• bronze coins and steel cents that had some value were rinsed with water or alcohol and them placed in olive oil. They are in a hold pattern for now.
• The only ancient, an LRB, was no worse for the wear in the coin junk box.

Some pics of this process are below.


At the end of the day a stop at the House of Pies was my reward.

 

Prayers and best wishes for your coin club friends! That looks like distressing salvage work.

 

His latest post was Saturday.

 

Dear friends, we have finally made it back home....

Irma hit Bonita Springs in-force around 12:00 am last Sunday. We had previously considered making a last minute escape toward Miami, but I am glad we decided against it as that would have been a bad decision.

By 1:00 pm power had gone and the winds and rain raged in full force until 6:00 pm at which time an eerie calm settled over the area as the eye of the storm passed over us. My wife an I crouched in the laundry room, nestled between a clothes dryer and washer.
The calm lasted about 40 minutes, and thankfully, Irma's aftermath over the area was much milder than the approach. By approximately 9 pm the noise was bearable. We survived unscathed, and so did our home - neighbors said the top wind speeds over the area were about 110-120 mph. It felt worse. Unfortunately, the storm surge form the Imperial River east of I-75 was appalling, and many, many homes were overrun by water. My hear goes out to those poor people! The conditions in that area of Bonita are terrible, and the people are in need of immediate help.

The storm was bad, the days after were worse - 4 days without power, low on gas, and in the stifling heat. No news from the outside world - no way to let our children know we were OK. That was specially difficult for my wife. Thankfully, some neighbors had portable radios and some news slowly trickled in.
To cut a long story short, we decided to forego trying to reach Miami to try to get a flight to Germany, and decided instead to leaved via Ft. Myers Airpot which luckily was operational. In the way we reached Boston, and from then onto Frankfurt. We are physically and emotionally drained.....

Here is a picture of our street. It was funny to watch minnows swimming in our driveway.

As bad as this was, it is nothing in comparison to the damage in areas closer to the ocean. I am full of admiration for the strength, fortitude and generosity of the people of Bonita.

 

My wife and I have been praying for you and your family since we hadn't heard anything. Glad you are safe back home. Prayers do get answered. Are you having second thoughts about buying a home in Florida?

 

Glad to hear from you @Eduard ! We've all been concerned (as I'm sure you've gathered from this thread...)

 

Very glad to hear you are okay @Eduard

 

Relieved to hear from you @Eduard, I am glad you are safe.

 

Happy to hear that you and you wife are safe and sound, Eduard .

 

On my wife's behalf and mine I would like to thank you all greatly for your concern.
Thank you very much.

Thank you, Bing. That is a good question. If anything, we feel more than ever attachment and affection for South West Florida. At the moment we do not feel Irma was enough to dissuade us to leave.

 

Everyone forgets how much air conditioning helps make Florida a tolerable place. Even the ability to get a few hours of AC makes a difference.

You might want to invest in a generator of some sort. Even a portable standby...with fuel of course.....and stored off the ground. They can be a life saver.

Glad you made it through. A visit that will surely provide you stories for a lifetime.

 

I'm glad to hear you are OK and that you are not discouraged about Southwest Florida. My mother grew up in Punta Gorda - it is such a lovely part of the country.

 

Glad your ok @Eduard !

@TIF hasn't reported in since Tuesday, which is very troubling.

 

Bubble wrap and ziplocks

 

Yes. She decided not to evacuate. Then communications went dark. The island is a big mess. I'm not sure things are improving there. And there are more Tropical storms moving into the area.

 

I'm here... just not much time for leisure activities. Things are very bad here in St. Thomas and they may be about to get worse. Maria is predicted to be a Cat 3 hurricane when it passes on Wednesday. Right now it is going towards St. Croix. I hope it gets pushed further south-- probably too late to hope it turns north. This is not good. The damage in STT/STJ is catastrophic and many people still don't have roof tarps, not that a roof tarp is protection against a Cat 3.

I'm juggling time between working and getting my condo back in order-- sleeping at the office since I have no power, no water, no cell service, and no internet at home and might not for months. Working on getting generator, something I should have done long ago. A generator will help but life is still going to be hard for a quite a while.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/15/us/virgin-islands-photos-irma.html







So much for the new solar farm... I think we all knew this would happen in even a minor hurricane .



Downed lines are everywhere. Most roads are now cleared to allow at least one lane. It is slow-going.