Hi, Ive been trying to nail down MS, AND BU examples of Lincoln cents, and have been doing quite well with the endeavour. From working backwards I have a complete set (all mint marks, and all 1982 varieties-will tackel remaining varietes later) from 2009 to 1945. All of these coins have a bright shiny lustre like the day they came out of the roll. From glancing at the small indicators I wrote on the back of the 2 x 2's they are in, it appears I never paid more than 1.95 US from ebay for any of them. I am cognisant that as I continue to work backwards in date, the cost of collecting in this manner will skyrocket. Now, I also have some examples of some older Lincolns (ie 1937P, 1941P) that have a lovely BU grade and lustre and may perhaps hit a MS grade, but the shade of the colouring is somewhat different. Tho I love it still, and I love looking at them, they have taken on somewhat of a more 'golden' colouring to them. They are not as intence in colour as their counterparts. My question is, is there a way I can conserve all of these coins from ever changing their appearance into what has occured with the 1937 and 1941? Once again I still love that look, but I much prefer looking at them when they are all uniform in colour. All of these coins have been securely placed in well sealed 2 x 2 's and transported into those by using a rubber edged tweezers so Im hoping fingerprints won't slowly appear down the road. Will that be enough? Im thinking someone may suggest airtights but even tho I have never priced it, I'm concerned the cost of doing so may be quite high for both the plastic airtights and the associated album. Maybe theres no way around it, and its part of collecting. I love the look of toned coins, but I much prefer toning on silver coins. For these cents, I would much prefer to have a uninformed colouring. Its great flipping through all of these pages and having the bright colours burning into your retinas. :kewl: Thanks for any suggestions. Martin
Copper is the most reactive of all our coinage metals. About the only way to stop it from changing color is to stop the air from getting to it, otherwise it is going to change color. As for the difference in color between certain dates, that is largely due to changes in the alloy and nothing can be done about it. Air-Tites can be purchased for about 30 cents each - now is 30 cents too much to pay to protect your coins ? And of course you have to use proper storage techniques as well. And from the sound of things, you may not be doing that. So it is quite likely you will have issues down the road.
I have a bunch of high grade lincolns that aren't slabbed in individual air tites. There they will stay for quite a while, because I don't want them to oxidize at all.
Exactly, I buy Airtites in bulk, they are 37 cents each....money well spent IMO. I rinse every Lincoln with reagent grade acetone, pat dry and put it into the Airtite. The acetone will remove any surface moisture and dust, my Lincolns will stay the same virtually forever with this treatment.
Intercept shield 2x2's in an intercept shield box. Or air-tites in an intercept shield box. It's about the best available right now that I know of.
You can use Eagle album pages and place Intercept 2x2's in them vertically. I still haven't bought the archival binders to put the Eagle pages in. They do apparently get flimsy and break in time so some people tape the edges. I don't think Intercepts are nearly as air-tite as air-tites. They fog up (inside the plastic) when you hold them if you live in a humid area. This damaged some of my coins IMO. Airties can be placed in Safety-flips (which have mylar) and you could put in Intercept box, but no fun for viewing :--(. Martin: look up the word "storage" and a ton of stuff will come up on this site. I would not use paper 2x2's as they absorb moisture and paperdust gets on coin. Eagle pages can be used to hold air-tites, but I think they are too loose for little coins like Lincolns. Eagle brand sells very nice year and mint mark lables as well. Good luck. Don't forget rechargeable dessicant and I use ziplock (Reynolds brand) that allows you to suck all air out with a machine.
Placing your coins in a plastic encasement like this will make them last forever. Or at least a few thousand years. I place most coins in Whitman Classic Albums, those go into a Zip Lock bag. I've had some coins for almost 60 years now and no changes. No Zip Lock bags back then but they did have pastic bags.
Thanks boys..looks like indeed the air-tite thing is the way to go. Encasing them in plastic as indicated in the photo above, may cause hardships in trying to find an album to accomodate them. The air-tite web site sells 250 of them for 80 bucks american..so if I factor in the Canadian dollar plus shipping from the U.S, Im really getting up there. As far as an album Im still searching for something. Thanks again
My personal set of raw BU copper is stored in airtites w/ black rings as well. Thats some cheap protection folks.
I hate to beat this thing to death, but Im having a difficult time trying to find an album that can accomodate these airtites, Can anyone be so kind as to post a url link of a site that has one so i can get an idea how they work? Air-tites below is very ambigious. http://www.air-tites.com/
Depending on what you are attempting, you may want to just purchase a blank cover and blank pages and make your own album. For those air tights for a coin, just use the next larger size. For example use the Nickel pages for the penny (cents). If you use the Whitman Pages they may still sell those press on Numbers/letters in Gold for those pages. Again though, I've been using just regular albums for many, many years and as long as no air gets to them, all coins look as they did when new.
Well...I am finally making headway on this effort. Air-tites with no o-rings, and got the air-tites sitting in these coin boxes. Ive go approx 200 MS grades all running from 1937 to date. Still working my way backward. Looks like the toning i was concerned about earlier was very minimal so Im certain i had got to it in time. A bit expensive...expecially those coins boxes below, but the presentation is primo. Thanks all for the advice http://www.unitradeassoc.com/lindner2008/lindner2008-coinboxes.pdf
