Proper acetone procedure

Thank you.

Is there any List anywhere of the Best and Worst Cleaning Dips in terms of the damage they do to silver coins?

Or is there a "Best Method" to avoid extensive damage?

 

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If you don't want to share this info publicly, can I write to you privately for the info?

 

I can't really add anything useful to what @GDJMSP said. I'm just repeating what I've been told here, not speaking from extensive personal experience.

A former member here posted a formula for a milder dip, based on something used at his former employer. I bought the chemicals to make some, but still haven't gotten around to actually working with it.

 

Thank you for explaining all that!

Re removing toning from Copper without leaving it an unnatural bright-pink color:

So, there is a "Secret Sauce" recipe / method to do this and you know it. Why wouldn't you want to share the info and spread the joy?

Are there any other methods that are not as good as your "Secret Sauce" recipe/method but that you would be willing to share?

I've read about a mixture of lemon juice, vinegar and salt. Will that work? If so, will it leave an unnatural bright-pink color?

 

@GDJMSP makes an important point; there is no one size fits all method. What do you want to remove? How much do you want to remove? What's the composition of the stuff you want to remove? What do you think is under the stuff you want to remove? What dips and solvents do you have? For dips, do you want to use them at full strength or dilute them? How will they react with what you want to remove? How will they react with other surfaces? What do you need to do to rinse or neutralize the surface when finished. What are the risks if too aggressive with the method you choose? Then you need to hope you guessed correctly on all of those things and don't make a big, expensive mess.

Here's the SECRET SAUCE
You need to be at good at the right method that will work for the specific example and learning from your mistakes. A little chemistry background helps. Hope I didn't spread too much joy for you to handle

It reminds me of fly fishing. All somebody needs to do is show me a book and tell me what equipment to buy and I'll be pulling those trout out the Montana streams with the best of 'em in no time. (Yeah, right).

Note: Went fly fishing one time with some very experienced people. Sucked at casting, sucked at keeping the right slack on my line, sucked at setting the hook (on the 1 really stupid fish that actually thought my presentation vaguely resembled something to eat), and got sunburned. It was really hard and I didn't even have to deal with choosing the right fly (but I did have a good time)

 

This will ruin your coin. So will ketchup, which has the same basic chemical attack (acid and salt).

 

Well, whatever you do with acetone, it is very volatile. Do not use near an open flame and do not use it in a closed garage, doubly true if there is a hot water heater there.

 

This makes a lot of sense!

It also makes a lot of cents!

(Couldn't resist that one...)

If there is too much knowledge out there already, and there are 10,000 other methods out there, then publicly sharing the "Secret Sauce" method will make it only 1 out of 10,000 methods, which gets it lost in the big shuffle.

Anyway, if you don't want to share it, even privately, I respect that. You've certainly earned your rights here!

Should you ever reconsider though (like on your deathbed or something...) you know where to find me. I can keep your secret recipe safe and simply say to anyone who asks that I'm sworn to secrecy.

 

Everybody can figure out how to do everything from scratch. But if everyone had to figure everything out for themselves, we'd all be dead because no one human being has enough time to figure everything out for themselves. If you had to figure out from scratch how to build the computer or phone you are using to write on this blog, and figure out how to build the car you drive from scratch, and figure out how to build the domain you live in from scratch, and how to grow and harvest each of the food items you eat from scratch, you would be spending every waking moment of your life trying to figure it all out.

We all rely on each other and on each other's knowledge in one way or another whether we like it or not.

If you drive a car that you didn't make yourself you didn't figure it out from scratch, you paid someone to figure it out for you and get the metal from the ground and mold the pieces and parts and put them all together in a specific way so that you can have a car that works.

Unless you grow all your own food and keep your own farm animals for food, and grow your own spices, and even get your own salt from the sea, you rely on others and their knowledge. Even if you keep your own farm animals, unless you reared them yourself after finding them in the wild, you relied on the knowledge of the one who you bought them from.

No man is truly an island. And sharing information is how we survive. Often we pay for information because people spend all day, every working day to learn and expand upon that information and so we pay every person who spends their days in pursuit of the information we need to make the things in our life work. We pay Ford or Chevrolet who pays the engineers working for them who work out all the information to create all the pieces and parts needed to put our cars together in all the intricate ways that it requires.

Same goes for everything in the world we pay for. People spend lots of time putting all the information together to get to the finished product of every single thing we use in our lives.

So, if you want me to pay you for the information you have, I would. But to withhold it because someone can technically figure it out for themselves. Well, it's a good thing everyone else isn't demanding that of you, or you wouldn't be driving in or riding in any modern vehicle with 4 rubber wheels and a motor, or using a computer, or a telephone (cell or landline) or turning on the lights or eating every food you've ever had the pleasure to eat.

I don't mean to sound angry, and I apologize if I do. I'm not angry, I'm just frustrated with the reasoning. I also believe in us helping each other in every way possible. As a matter of fact, if I had to narrow down my life ideals to only one it would be that the greatest thing we can do in this world is to help another human being. So it just boggles my mind when I come across people who think, feel and act the opposite. I hope at the very least you find joy or meaning in your ideals of withholding knowledge that could help another person, because nobody else will be finding joy or meaning from them.

 

If it isn't going to stay that color, then everyone is on equal footing - nobody's copper escapes toning and everyone's copper needs to be cleaned periodically in order to keep the toning away.

And how secret will this information stay if, as you say, lots of people know this method?

If people, including TPGs, want to be unethical and claim that the color of the copper coins they are selling are the original color, and if the people buying them don't realize that that is unlikely, then they can take a number and get in line with all the other unethical people in the world who misrepresent the products they sell.

I'm wondering if there is a single thing I've purchased in my life that hasn't been misrepresented. From my car's gas mileage, to my light bulb's hours of life. I can't think of anything that I've ever purchased that has not been misrepresented. That's capitalism. Buyer beware.

I don't act unethically when I sell something (which thankfully is not my day job), but lots of people do act unethically when selling their wares. All of us consumers take our chances. And at a certain point, the understanding is that it's misrepresented. Such as the mileage on cars and the life of a light bulb. We all still buy stuff.

Anyway, I was just trying to help my little nephews who wanted to get their copper rounds to look shiny and new without ruining them and to make their old pennies filling their pennies folders look shiny and new. The oldest of them is barely 11 and the youngest is 5. There is no business motivation here.

Besides, I have a day job and spending hours on end looking for a needle in a haystack simply because it may possibly be worth $100 is not my idea of fun in my down time. I have fun with the kids filling their pennies folders and they wanted to make their pennies and copper rounds they collect look shiny without ruining them. Oh well.

 

Doesn't matter if copper rounds are shiny and circulated cents will look weird and unnatural if dipped and turned red. Your nieces and nephews will benefit more from learning about how copper cents and rounds get the color they are and what color they start out to be, IMO.

 

Of course it doesn't matter. It's just that they are kids and I'm trying to give them a fun time in the little ways that matter to them. And I want them to have positive memories about our coin collecting activities, not negative or disappointing memories. They have enough of that from regular life.

 

I understand but if you treat it as normal then there is nothing for them to think it is a negative or to be disappointed about. Better than years later when the dipped cent turned toned again. If they like shiny coins buy a few new rolls from your bank and then explain how the older ones are not shiny because over the years they get used and in people's pockets or in the album's. Good luck hunting for coins!

 

Thank you!

 

Thanks so much for this. I've been doing so many things wrong!!! I'm glad I know better before I do anymore damage.