Something is stuck to my 1890 Morgan

I was taking a good look at my 1890 Morgan dollar that I have had since I was a kid when I discovered there is s tiny pink sticky blob stuck to my coin. I thought I might be able to blow it off with a bulb things. No go. I tried brushing it off with a soft camel hair brush. Still stuck. I tried nudging it loose with the corner of a stiff card. Still there! What should I do? See the pics.

 

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ummm...chide yourself for mixing your coins with your trading card bubble gum as a kid? (j/k).
If you have a VERY steady hand, I'd try using a nice pair of fine point tweezers to try and lift if off, being extremely carefull not to come in contact with the coin.

 

You can believe that much self chiding has already occurred. I just tried to get it off with a needle. The needle chipped a part of the pink stuff off. I'm afraid the only way to get if off is to dissolve it. But, from what I've read so far, even distilled water will damage the coin. Is that right? I'm afraid I'm literally stuck with this pink stuff. I'll bet it is sugar or syrup based. What will that do to the coin if I don't get it off? Any other options?

 

Use the miracle cleaner

It is widely known that WD40 is an excellent cleaner of coins. I have used it for many years to clean quite valuable coins without changing the chemical make up. It is a silicone based cleaner/lubricant. I understand it was used to lubricate the inner workings of torpedoes in WWII.

Additionally, unscented Acetone nail polish remover also cleans coins and dissolves lacquer and other substances from the coins. without harming them. I guess you can use the scented kind if you want your coins to have a spring-like smell.

Unfortunately Acetone is a controlled substance in most countries as it is very toxic and is easily absorbed in the skin. Apparently it can alter your DNA and cause funny growths on/in your body.

A wiley old collector once told me that a regular toothbrush is also good to clean coins. The brush is nowhere near as hard as the metal. Unfortunately the ill-experienced person will ram the crud and dirt around to the point of scratching the surface.

Perferred method to clean coins: Soak them in WD40 for a few days, use toothpicks or Q-tips to wipe away loosened crud. Leave in solution for a few more days. Final cleansing in a Q-tip dipped in acetone. Rinsed with warm water, placed on a soft cotton towel and air dried.

 

he he - I didn't think of a tooth pick. But I'd have had to resort to making my own because I know we're clean out of tooth picks at the moment.

I'll try the distilled water.

Thanks again.

 

WD-40 eh? Never heard of that one. FYI, WD-40 used have fish oil as its primary base, which is why it used to be great bait spray when fishing But a few years ago, they changed the forumal and "modernized" it with a more petroleum/chemical base to it. Don't know how either will affect a coin, but personally, I'd stick with distilled water.

 

I've had luck with rose thorns. They have a natural point and break apart if you apply too much pressure. They can scratch (like anything else). I'd avoid anything metal. WD-40 will clean it up real good, but I think the solvents would take away that nice toning. I don't think nail polish remover is pure acetone. It has lots of additives and will leave residue that won't rinse off in water. You might be able to soften it up with a little heat. Not melt-the-coin heat, just a little sunlight for a few minutes.

 

The distilled water did the trick! But the needle did leave a scratch. I thought I'd been so careful. What a bonehead!

 

I think they all have merit

I discovered the WD40 cleaning solution by mere chance at another Internet forum: www.canadiancoin.com. There a former chemical engineer commented on the WD40 formulation and suggested that people try it to clean stubborn coins. Neither silver or copper coins would not react to it. Tarnished coins could react if they oxidized due to contaminants.

He commented that distilled (water unless purchased from a reputable commercial source) wasn't normally mineral free. In home systems, some organic contaminants like chloroform and cleaning fluid (solvents) may leave the water with the steam and end up in the final water when the steam is cooled. Using some sort of heat exchanging process to collect evaporated water forced through refrigerated copper tubing would give the water an unusually high copper content.

I think that distilled water makes a great rinse after the cleaning cycle is completed. It doesn't clean coins of finger grease or grime without a scrubbing. WD40 loosens without much scrubbing.

As a test, I tried WD40 on face value heavily crudded coins. After a few days in the soaking solution, the crud was easily removed in a rinse of running tap water.

Interestingly, acetone in relatively high concentrations can be had at most dollar shops. I picked up a bottle in a shop with a content of 80%. The rest was lanolin and stabilizer. This approach is much better than the jewellery/coin dipping solutions available to collectors.

As with WD40, I would rinse my coins after cleaning.

 

Coin conservation

I think NCS uses Nozema cream to conserve coins.

It's worked wonders for my wife's face.

(Don't tell her I said that)

LOL

 

Wow, I knew I saved that old bottle of Wildroot Lanolin Hair Tonic for something!

 

Over at another coin board, they were talking about cleaning with Vaseline and soaking in olive oil to remove crud and grime from coins. Anybody know how those might compare to WD-40/acetone?

 

Personally, I would highly recommend against using WD40 to clean any coin for one pure and simple reason - the ingredients are unknown. In other words, it is not common knowledge what active and inactive ingredients are included in the product.

What is known though, is that the product (if not entirely removed from the surface of a coin after cleaning) will leave a film of oil on the coin. In addition, their are ingredients which (if not removed) will inhibit the natural toning that would normally occur on the coin over time.

If you are interested in the cleaning properties of WD40, I would suggest researching LVP Hydrocarbon Fluids which, as I understand it, are probably the active component responsible for the cleanign properties of the product. Possibly there is another LVP Hydrocarbon Fluid with the same cleaning properties but with known ingredients and no oils??

 

I don’t like the way this is headed.

Simple rule – NEVER clean your coins. Every rule has an exception, of course, so when a pink blob shows up, give it a try (I would have used a finger nail or wooden toothpick, though).

When it gets to the point that there is general info given about removing grime and crud, I think it has gone too far. These coins will not look natural when the cleaning is done. Especially if they are all slicked over with Vaseline.

I have heard that olive oil is commonly used for ancient coins, but that is a distinctly separate issue.

 

Agreed!

With ancients you are normally faced with centuries of repose in the ground, and all of the attendant corrosion and damage, along with encrusted dirt. Olive oil is acidic - very weak, but acidic nonethelss. That's why it works so slowly, and why because it is affecting the surface so slowly, it is reasonably simple to stop the process before the original coin metal is seriously affected.

Pure acetone - from the hardware or paint store, most emphatically not from the cosmetic counter - is Ph neutral, neither acidic nor alkaline, and lacking free oxygen radicals, doesn't directly affect metal one way or another, which is why it has widespread (not unanimous) support for use on coins. It will attack PVC slime, and organic substances including many glues and tape residues, but it can also interact with the chemical compounds known as tarnish (aka "toning"), which is the reason usually given by its detractors for avoiding its use.