I've mentioned this months back, but as part of myself living out this recession I decided to put my Canadian coin collection on hold (the remainder I needed were all key date silver examples of pre 1900 all denominations), and start collecting BU Red examples of Lincoln cents. I am in Toronto so I bought out all those examples from the dealers in my area, I went to a wonderful coin show in Tonawanda New York a few weeks back and ebay is loaded with buy it now/make an offers. As it sits now I have all BU Red examples from 1937 to date.. all mint marks sitting in 2 x 2's. I've decided to get them all in coin capsules with the hopes of stopping any toning down the road into a brown colourization. I read here that they will do that if they are exposed to the open air.Im sure 2 x 2's wont cut it either.Your American Red Book claims Red's are worth more. To you experts, do you think this will indeed stop any toning into this brown colour (color)? Any advice how to prepare them prior to them being placed in the capsules? Im concerned about perhaps locking in humid air into the capsules. I am going to take this one step further and showcase them in the coin boxes identified in the link below.These are then put into an aluminium locking case I have. I asked my dealer to order in all the components I need in to make this happen. They should be ready for pickup on Monday. Thanks for the advice. :- ) http://www.unitradeassoc.com/lindner2008/lindner2008-coinboxes.pdf
Capsules are good but you will still see some change over the years with some coins. It's tough to know how it was stored before you bought it.
I just thought something that might work. I'm going to try this myself tonight. Take one of those sandwich size vacuum bags and place the plastic capsule with the coin inside of it. Don't snap shut the plastic capsule yet. Seal the bag, suck the air out of it with the hand held custom pump. When the air is all sucked out, snap shut the plastic capsule if it wasn't shut by the vacuum process. No air and moisture should be present now. When the vacuum is unsealed normal air pressure should keep the coin sealed unless there is a leak in the capsule. Does this sound like a Rube Goldberg idea?
http://www.cointalk.com/forum/t45244/ The capsule are not airtight, so they can be closed before vaccuming. Boss has also used this method. I have found the little sealing flaps where the pump fits become "leaky" after a few uses, so I seal it with a small piece of scotch tape after pumping. Jim
I put mine in AirTites, then I put the those in quarter size 2x2's and label them. I take those and put them in a plastic 3-ring binder sheets and then into a 3-ring binder. I put the entire binder into a giant ziplock bag with a super size dessicant pack. Then I put the whole thing in a deposit box at the bank. I know for sure my coins won't change in my lifetime.
What I should have mentioned is after the airtite is snapped shut the vacuum bag can be unsealed and the airtite removed. Now your your coin is in an airtite capsule with no air. This still leaves the labeling of the coin to be accomplished. I dont know if I'd use 2x2's specially when you're going to put them in a Lindner box. That would kind of ruin the visual effect when you display them and I think you will after you see the final result of your efforts. Desertgem, did you mean that airtites are not air tight?
Wow, Im seeing some interesting discussions coming out here. Im amazed that the capsules are not air tight, considering the company that makes them is call....AIR TITE!! http://www.airtiteholders.com/Categories/category.aspx?CID=2 he showed me a box of what he had in stock and indeed that was the company name on them. I never thougth about the vacume packed approach, then again I wouldnt be able to show case them. On the other side of the coin (he he) the whole idea was to conserve them anyway.
Dollar, I'm not explaining my method very well. I just tried it and it works great. As long as I don't try to open the Air Tite capsule its sealed as good and better than just putting the coin in and snapping it shut. You can still showcase it or store in whatever type box you want. It doesn't stay in the vacuum bag that it was put in originally.
Put some salt crystals into an air-tite, or any holder, and then submerge the holder under water. Hold down with weight if necessary, and check at time intervals. If no water gets in, then the salt crystals will stay sharp edged. As they absorb moisture, the crystals edges will soften. True, we don't store our coins this way, but it is a typical lab type of experiment to try predictic results based on more extreme concentrations over a shorter time period. Again , based on my experiment and not to say that air-tites are not good holders. Jim
Thanks folks...great ingenuity and much appreciated advice. Will keep you posted how I make out. It's going to take a while to accomplish this..but Im sure its well worth it.
Desertgem, that's a good method,placing salt crystals in an airtite. With all airtites being equal, if the salt shows soft edges then the rest will do the same thing.
