Having to go through an additional set of baths.. noticed that the distilled water had a lil blue in it after boiling this cent... then let it sit over night in VC (not proper use of product but works for me lol) which turned a deep purple... I've never seen anything like it before, but i can only think it's "ink". It seems at some point the coin was soaked in blue ink of some type.. It is now sitting in a cup of 90% isopropal alcohol which is already deep purple and will probably need a 2nd run of the same in a few hours.... so far so good though but will probably be another 24hrs before conservation is done now
Did you happen to take a "before" picture of the coin? How does it look now? I'm not entirely sure what's going on, but "deep purple" is not the color I expect my alcohol to turn when soaking a coin!
looks like an attempt at AT that went badly but the alcohol seems to be stripping it off bit by bit these are the original pics.. (link below) it turned almost black when I put it in the distilled water boil, the water got the slightest blue tint when done... the VC turned purple very quickly. And to be honest I wish I had done step by step pics this time lol without a doubt someone did one heck of a doctoring job on this poor pup https://www.cointalk.com/threads/2-yes-2-major-additions-for-the-10-lc-set.400619/
alcohol was almost black... just rinsed and refilled, some copper color is starting to show through the black/blue...
Honestly, this the first time I've seen anything quite like this. Likely shoe polish, mostly water insoluble dyes in wax. Isopropanol is a good choice but I'd also try xylene. You don't want to waste all your VERDI-CARE on the gross removal of the residue, solvents are cheaper. VC will work but you'd have to change it too frequently - any solvent will become saturated quickly on a project like this. Change often. GOOD LUCK!
didn't expect the reaction the VC had.. water was only very slightly blued.. but the vc bath (as you see i use an airtite for vc bath min waste )(yeah I'm cheap lol) but once i saw that result i switched to the alc to remove the rest... would use xylene if I had any left lol
tempted to soak it in green soap which will easily remove any wax and inks (or grease or oil) but not sure how the copper would react to it so won't risk it lol (and I'm talking US Navy Green Soap in the 5 gallon bucket not that 15% crap costco sells lol) We used to use straight GS to clean the old grease off the crane and winch cables on the ship.. was less nasty then using jp5 for the job (but not by much)
The technology in VC allows it to remove both polar (water soluble) and non-polar (organic soluble) residues.
I don't know the value of the coins you have but I don't recommend that. Once you cross the conservation line there's no turning back.
hehe I've crossed the line in the past but not on an 1810 or any "classic head" year (08-14) they just too hard to come by in any condition cheap
after multiple hours and 3 changes of alcohol she is now taking a last long (overnight) soak in VC... the pic's explain why nicely Not a bad looking coin under all that crud... will be doing some tooth pick work on some of the chunky bits of V still attached but in the end I did well for 20 bucks on a semi key date I'll say the details uncovered at this point have already raised the coins value above the 20 mark hehe (ps don't mind the airbubbles)
Wow. I think you might have a half way decent coin at the end of all this! Granted, it might have been less than $20 for the coin, but you're spending that much more in product to conserve it!
Still looks a bit green, but loads better. Any way to get the last green off and let it build some skin back? Or is the end of the road for it? I gotta say, I'm honestly impressed at how much better it looks.
