Bust halves from a fire

So I had a friend send me 4 bust halves that were in a house fire. I have taken pictures of 3 of them. Obviously they are damaged and everything else. It looks like there may be some stuff melted to a couple. Would acetone do anything? Is there anything that could help these out some? Not trying to get them to grade or anything. Just make them look better than they do. Mainly remove whatever is stuck to them. I think it was some kind of flip they were in and these were in a safe that took too much heat.

 

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Do you know what might be stuck to them? Any oxidation or metal softening is probably permanent. Surface organics may be removable, but they may be hardened enough to be difficult to remove with a plain solvent soak. You might try the worst one and experiment on that one and see if the progress is enough to be worth continuing. I suspect you could get off some of the surface coating, but that it would still look pretty mottled and ugly due to permanent surface damage.

We used to use sonication + solvent baths to remove difficult organic deposits in chem lab, but sonication is very rough on soft metals and will cause cavitation and loss of metal in the form of shedding metal dust, so I wouldn't try it on coins.


Good luck, and sorry for your friend's loss.

 

If there was a possibility of them being in plastic flips , acetone might dissolve off any remnants, otherwise the possibilities become smaller. And damage ( bubbling , pitting, melting , etc. ) would limit it to using something to remove the damaged metal itself and that is a far shot also. If you get to that point, you might use a diluted EZest ( 10%) and watch what is happening and stop at an acceptable ( for you)point and rinse well. You may have to replace the EZest a time or two ( or at a higher % ) ,as they look severe. What ever you decide, do one first with acetone first and if the acetone stays the same color with no visible reduction . it has to be a chemically reactive substance like EZest ( rather strong acid) IMO, Jim

 

Is a shame because I believe the 1811 is an overton 112 r4. The 1807 saddens me too. It is just a 50/20 but saddening. The fire was several years ago. I have emailed him and am waiting for him to reply for sure about what they were in that's stuck to them. He had a total loss at his house and he is a dealer. So it was a huge loss for him. He was sending me a couple holders he had to check out and said he was sending me some coins with it. I did not expect it to be bust halves.

 

First thing, I would try boiling these in distilled water in a glass container for an hour or so. After cooling, a couple of hours in acetone and then in xylene might help.

 

That was the word I was looking for. Xylene. I knew there was something else. That's not a bad idea. The Distilled water boil.

 

Years ago my LCS caught on fire. Not only did some coins melt but small pieces of charred wood and broken pieces of cement became permanent part of the coin. Some coins even melted together. Best wishes.

 

Still a bust is a bustthey've seen better days for sure.

 

I'm the fondest of the 1807 1808 design. It saddens me to see this one like this. I did drop the 1811 in some acetone last night and this morning there are a few little flakes that have came off into the acetone. So I'm going to let it sit and see what happens.

 

I talked to him more last night, he has several of these and several morgans. These coins were all graded coins. Pcgs, ngc and others. All were in tpg holders when the house burnt. I guess you couldn't even see the coins for all the melted plastic. He put these in a brass tumbler to get them down to this. He said what was on them you couldn't do anything with. These are some of the morgans he has. And yes that is an 1893 cc. I can't imagine what all this guy lost...

 

I've always wondered about how best to go about preventing this from happening since we use so much relatively easy to melt plastic for coin storage.

 

Send them in to NCS.

 

I've actually given that quite a bit of thought. If you're going to keep a valuable collection at home, your security and loss limitation hazards (for most people) in order of decreasing risk are:

1) Theft
2) Fire
3) Flood

I'll ignore flood since water is nowhere near the hazard that items 1 and 2 are. So, theft: Buy a burglar-rated safe and choose the highest rating that you can justify. Any safe that is not burglar-rated is not worth the money. Then spend a significant amount of thought on how you are going to hide and secure the safe. You must make it as difficult as possible for the safe to be stolen. Yes, thieves will steal the whole safe and take their time opening it at their evil lair. I am reminded of the story of the burglars who backed up a tow truck to the house, ran the cables inside and dragged the safe outside, in broad daylight in a subdivision.

Where you locate the safe is dependent upon how you will hide it and secure it but also upon what happens in the event of a fire. Fire-rated safes are available and they are rated upon a UL testing criteria. IIRC, it is the time to a 400F interior temperature in fires of 1500F and 2000F temperatures. Obviously, longer and hotter is better (and more expensive).

But what happens to the temperature of your safe is also dependent upon where in the structure it is located. If it's on the interior of the house, then when the ceiling, walls, furnishings and roof collapse upon it, all those flammable materials create a huge and long-lasting bed of fuel that will not allow plastic and paper materials inside the safe to survive. Better to have the safe on an exterior wall, obviously on the ground floor, in order to reduce the "coking bed" effect.

Finally, and I've never seen anyone give voice to this idea, you might consider a heat suppression system. I'm not talking about a fire-suppression system which usually consists of a wet or dry sprinkler system for the house. Instead, I'm talking about an inlet and outlet pipe connected to the safe for carrying cooling water into and out of the safe in the event the interior temperature reaches some set temperature, say 200F. The water won't really do any damage and if you construct the system from a fire and structurally damage-resistant piping like Sch. 80 or 120 welded stainless steel, then there are all kinds of advantages, including additional resistance to burglars carting away your entire safe. Obviously this is a ground floor option only.

I have to be careful here because my engineer's hat comes on and I want to design the whole thing once I begin thinking about it but that's the basic outline.

Frankly, it seems to me that most folks are simply not willing to spend any real thought or money to protect their collection, like the poor gentleman in NJ who posted recently on the loss of a huge collection. Sometimes and for some people, the best solution is a safety deposit box at the bank.

OTOH, my local hardware store that opened in 1884 still has a huge safe that must weigh over a ton AND IT'S ON WHEELS. I wonder if they'd consider selling?

 

or..

 

I have one of these.

 

Won't be the first time I've been ridiculed! Keep 'em coming.

But the question was how to protect your coins from the effects of melting plastics in the event of a fire. If someone has other, achievable, ideas, I'd love to hear them. The Scrooge McDuck and hyperbolic cooling tower ideas are probably not practical for most of us.

 

AFAIK, there is no way to shield plastics from heat during a fire unless the safe were built above a collapseable platform above a swimming pool.

 

Maybe a foam suppression system for the closet/room that your safe is located in.

 

In 24 hours the 1811 has lost some of its caked on crust to acetone

 

Check Craigslist for a ceramic kiln that someone wants to get rid of. Most can withstand cone 8 which is 2300 deg F. I have one for ceramics and used to run it for 8-10 hours at a time ( until the electric bills got rather high). You can plug any cracks or openings with refractory clay. I bought a larger one at a yard sale and I have had thoughts of making it gas fired, but now that you asked this question, I might make a fire safe out of it as much of the heating elements have damage. It would not be 100% heat proof, but a heck of a lot better than a metal safe. Just a possibility
Jim

PS, You can buy ceramic refractory bricks and put them around a metal safe for reduction of the heat, but the weakness is then the safe. Jim