Water damaged / rusted Morgans (how to restore)

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Is it just my imagination, or is the luster a bit diminished in the last couple of shots?

 

I think the luster is unaffected. The photos were taken with artificial light instead of daylight though.

 

Other than the spotting, it sure looks clean.

 

The changes in lighting and white balance make it hard to understand what's going on. Looks like the luster is about gone.

 

Up the strength of the lemon juice.

 

Agreed. I think this was the coin in the batch that convinced me to try out a few cleaning techniques. It was like seeing mud splashed on a Rembrandt.

 

Picked up a few more "culls" to experiment on.

I'll try to upload the full gallery of before pics later, but they were taken with a pretty lousy camera on my burner phone.

One of the dollars I soaked overnight was a 1925 Peace dollar someone had splashed red paint on the face of. Another is a 1904 Morgan with a strip of deteriorating (clear/now yellow) tape still adhered across the obverse. Soaking overnight in distilled water caused some tape to flake off, but otherwise did nothing to help either coin. I tried to pick the paint off with a toothpick and blotting with a bamboo towel, but no joy.



In less than 30 seconds of pure Acetone, the results on the 1925 Peace Dollar were pretty amazing:

 

More pics of the 1925 Peace, after soaking in distilled water to neutralize the Acetone:



I'm also soaking a few of the other culls in distilled water & blotting off the gunk with my bamboo toweling. It's easy to mistake oily residue for ugly toning, as I think that's what put at least 2 of these in the "cull" bin.

Pics of both sides of my blotting rag also below:

 

Different elements react to different things. Rust is usually an oxidation of Iron and can be either brown or green.

Copper usually turns red or green as it oxidized and is usually called verdigris. It will ultimately turn black and conserved corroded coins will often be left with black inactive damage.

Toning is just the initial stage of either corrosion or patina, depending on whether it leads to a protective coating or continuous destruction.

Silver resists corrosion, but metal in the alloys less so. Same with Gold though it's is even more resistant than silver.

The color on my screen appears to be from Iron and should not be causing damage to the coin chemically. However, the rust could have formed a crust which will affect the luster when removed.

In any event, wishing the coin wasn't damaged if it has been shouldn't prevent you from attempting to conserve it now to mitigate additional damage.

You seem to be on a good path.

 

One more quick observation: there's no "neutralizing" acetone. Rinsing with clean acetone will carry away any dissolved materials. Rinsing a coin with water (and leaving it to dry) can invite further chemical reactions that change the coin's appearance.

Acetone evaporates very quickly, and clean acetone doesn't leave anything (harmful or otherwise) on the coin's surface. Doug recommends dipping or soaking in one acetone bath, then dipping in a second bowl of clean acetone, then a third bowl of clean acetone. Each stage reduces contamination by orders of magnitude. By the end, you've removed everything that acetone can remove.

 

Interesting. My understanding was that acetone which had dissolved surface crud left a bit of residue behind and should be quickly washed with distilled water to neutralize anything trying to re-bond.

Hadn't tried the "rinse with clean acetone" method.

 

The acetone evaporates very quickly, so if there is any dissolved residue/crud in the solvent, it can redeposit on the coin. The multi bath method works very well.

You can check the cleanliness of the acetone by putting a couple of drops on a piece of clear glass. If you see any residue after it evaporates, then you're at risk for the same stuff sticking to your coins

 

Anyone try that product "WD40 specialist, rust remover soak" supposed to be an acid free soak that removes rust.

the "story" on it is "When used, the rust bonds to the solution and the iron becomes part of the used solution"

I don't know what it does or doesn't do exactly, and not recommending it, but wanted to see if anyone has given it a shot or not yet.