is anyone aware of something that would dissolve lucite off a coin? Something thats not harmful or causes damage
I'm thinking that Lucite is an inert material, which of course means that it won't react with anything, though I may be mistaken.
Spider, there are solvents which will work on Lucite, most of them being cocktails of organic solvents, particularly chlorinated solvents. While these should not affect pure gold they could have some corrosive influence on silver. However the end result will probably be better than a coin all gunked up with Lucite. Also if you minimize the contact time with the chlorinated solvents and then remove those solvents promptly with an acetone rinse you might come out fairly well. This is beyond the realm of my personal experience as I have never encountered coins encased in Lucite but if they were my coins I'd give it a go. Try it out on one of the least valuable ones first. Then give it a couple of days to see what might eventually result. There certainly shouldn't be any hurry if the coins have been in the Lucite a long time already anyway. Here is a link to one of the solvents. http://www.misterplexi.com/solvent.html You might shop around. Probably you can get something at a hardware store or printing supply house which would work. These chlorinated cocktails are fairly common stuff.
Use a bandsaw and/or grinder to remove as much of the excess lucite as possible without damaging the coin. then dip it in liquid nitrogen. The extreme temperature change combined with the differances in contraction rates and the fact that the plastic should be quite brittle at the low temperature should cause most of the plastic to crack up and fall away from thermal stress. You may have to warm it back up and freeze it again a couple times. You can also "hit" the plastic right after freezing to capitalize on the brittleness of the plastic.
Conder, if you aren't careful with liquid nitrogen, you can possibly shatter coins too! :EEK! One question though, any idea how lucite ended up in there???
How thick does it appear to be ? I mean just look at it - are the coins sitting on top of the wood with the clear material covering them ? If so - then you have the thickness of the coins plus however much is on top of the coins. This would mean the layer is quite thick - probably a quarter inch or more. If this is the case - then it is unlikely it is lacquer. For lacquer to be that thick it would require probably a hundred or more coats. But if the coins are let into the wood - like if there are small circles for each coin cut into the wood and the coin sets down into that circle so that the top of the coin is flush or nearly so with the top of the wood - then the material covering the coins could be much thinner. And in that case it could be lacquer. I'm betting it's lucite or some other acrylic.
Let me suggest a different route, if its not too late. Find a good polish for the lucite/acrylic...if that's what it is, and make the view of the coins a clear as possible. Then you would have a better chance of identifying the coins as genuine, or not, and still have a desk.
