So I pulled out an 1832 Half Penny (didn't know it at the time) that had been stored in a 2x2 in a pvc pocket in a binder in a box in a safe for several decades. You see 4 photos below... The BEFORE photo, the picture after rinsing/dipping it in distilled water (wow), after an Acetone bath, after a Xylon dip (and water rinse). Here are some more AFTER pics. The lower right photo shows the coin's current color... it has darkened over the last hour to dark bronze. Any comments? I'm pleased with the results, but it won't hurt my feelings if anyone tells me I did this wrong. (Better to learn now than after I try this on a few more ugly green coins.)
I think it turned out real nice. I hate when coins turn green, alot of junk mexican coins did so for me not too long ago.
So I've started wondering: (and this is scientific curiosity... the dark bronze color doesn't bother me) if I repeated this process, would the coin temporarily be as bright as it was earlier? If I had encased it in an air-tite or something quickly after it was dry, would it have maintained that bright color longer? I really like this coin now... I've been staring at it for 45 minutes now.
Each step was very short - less than a minute. I got some rubber gloves at Lowe's so I wouldn't get the solvents on my hands, and I held the coin vertically as I dipped it in the solvent, then resting the coin on the base of the container, I would pat the con by opening and closing my fingers (pinching it and letting it go) gently. Then rinsed it in water to clear other debris and patted it dry on a towel. I had read a thread here earlier that said if the solvents do anything, it will be almost immediate. In my case, I found that to be true.
This is the 1st time I've seen this process "in action" sort of speak. Thanks Any chance you could soak that baby for days in a sealed glass container of acetone for a couple days to see if you can get rid of the reminants i see along the outer rim at 7-8oclock ? I seem to recall that this green gunk can cause pitting/corrosion. Any sign of that? Thanks
Not much on this coin. On the obverse, you can see light areas around the curls of the hair and around the nose and so on. Those spots are a light greenish taint, and may be the early stages of pitting. My wife worked on a few other coins after I did this one, and the pitting/corrosion was VERY evident. It seems this coin was just lucky and a very good candidate for this process of cleaning. The green stuff on this coin was a much brighter green than the other coins we worked on last night, which may be an indication that less damage has occurred underneath. As for the remnants on the rim of the coin, I wonder the same thing. Someone on here has experimented with Verdi-Gone (I think it's called), and that may be an option to remove the remaining spots. However, the dark spot is not obscuring the details (it is not build-up on the coin), so it may be just non-uniform discoloration/toning.
I'm running an experiment on cleaning a State Quarter. I have a 'shiny' Utah quarter and a not-so-nice looking Utah quarter. I washed the shiny quarter in Dawn (the original blue soap - the original blue is used to remove oil from animals and birds that get caught in ocean oil spills - it rinses off very quick without a bunch of bubbles) and I'm waiting to see if the shiny turns dark or shows any other damage compared to the not-so-clean Utah quarter. I got this method from the following link. Tell me what you think to use dish soap to remove oils from handling. http://coins.about.com/od/caringforcoins/ht/cleancoins.htm
Ooops - looks like a meant Xylol which is the Lowe's version of Xylene which is a solvent used for thinning paint etc.
Thanks, I have several old dragon coins from china I might want to try this out on! They look so bad now I certainly cant hurt them any further.
