Hello Again, Recently I went through a box of halves, and found 29 (5 Walkers, 23 Franklin, 1 64 Kennedy). Long story short, some of those and some other Kennedys I have are absolutely filthy, and I want to clean them to make them look presentable and not green, orange, red, or whatever colour they may be. I have been using a mixture of Vinegar and Salt to clean them up some, and I kind of like the results. Do you have any other suggestions? I don't clean any that will be going into my folders, etc., though. Just doubles... Thanks.
Vinegar and salt is a mistake, you are ruining those coins. Vinegar is acetic acid and that will damage the surface of the coins. If there are coins left you haven't cleaned yet, stop, take a picture, and post them. Many times, coins tone colors and that makes them desirable to some collectors. I can guarantee you, they are worth much less now that they have been cleaned in this manner.
HORROR OF HORRORS!!!!!!!!!!!!! Rescue those coins and take them out of that acidic mixture NOW. Try soaking them in oilive oil, for a few days, then pick away at the debris with a hawthorn thorn. Seems weird I know but those thorns won't scrtch up the coin. Then after that, you will need to evaluate the next approach to continue with that process. Acetone came to mind.
Olive oil is an acid too ya know. And once used, then you have to use a solvent to get the olive oil off the coin. Yes it will.
edited....somehow I think if I said 'the sky is blue' I would have got a response back from this particular egotistical and dominating administrator, 'no its not..its the refraction of light that makes it appear to be blue..so your wrong.' It wouldnt have been the 1st time me and other people have been on the receiving end of this crap. Sometimes I wonder why I even friggin bother to participate...and its incidents like this is why I am seeing people drop out of here like flies, or get booted out because they get so frustrated with this type of crap, that they don't care what the end result is. Me being one of them as well. BTW, your friggin wrong..its safe for coins, and I have read tons of literature that substantiates this claim, including literature from the Coin and Currency Musuem in Ottawa, and not one word that anchors what you are suggesting. If your concerned about oily reside, dry mild dish soap and water solution works. Just google it, and do the same type of research I do/have done, before shooting from the hip like that. The hawthorn is safe as the tip has some flexibility before it can 'carve out' the surface of the coin. If you want to use something hard like a toothpick, then go ahead an do so, but I wouldnt. I'm not even going to bother to reopen this thread going forward, as Im sure Im bound to get another response back with the same type of rhetoric and bull crap thats excrutiating to swallow. Quite frankley I think its time to shuffle the deck at the administator level, and put some comradery back into this forum. Sorry NEWTOCOINS2010 if your getting bounced around with advise, but i stand by what i say. Try googling it as well.
You didn't get a response back from a moderator - you got a response back from a member, just like you. And by the way, what I said was accurate, olive oil is an acid. That's the only reason it works to remove stuff from coins. And, a thorn is more than capable of scratching a coin. Sure, you might not scratch one if you are careful enough. But the same can be said of using a straight pin or a needle. But that doesn't mean they will not scratch the coin. Anybody that wants - go get a rose thorn or hawthorn - try and scratch a coin from your pocket and see for yourself if it scratches it or not. And Dollar, you can find literature that says the world is flat too. But that doesn't make it so. So if you're tired of me disagreeing with what you post, then post acurate info instead of misleading or inaccurate info. Like using soap to clean the olive oil off. Sure it works, but soap also leaves behind a residue that is harmful to the coins.
Olive oil does contain a small amount of FFA (free fatty acids). But acid can only do damage if dissolved in water. So if you put the coin in pure olive oil, it will be fine.
Use acetone, the purest you can find. Be careful with it, ventilated area, only put it in a glass container. It will not harm your coin....you however it might.
Its the little things left out of some statements that can make it dangerous. It should say use a GREEN thorn which is more flexible and slims down your chances,but yes it will still scratch a coin if not careful. As I have scratched one myself when not being careful enough.
I don't know where you got that idea, but people use olive oil because it removes stuff from coins. And it removes it because it contains acid. And no water is necessary. Olive oil is not water soluable.
Olive oil acidity: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090317064821AAWvpHu There's doubtless a more authoritative answer out there, but that one matches what I know of chemistry. The point that isn't getting discussed here is that anything that comes out of a plant is an incredibly complicated mixture of more chemicals than you can shake a stick at, not all of which you can guarantee the metal-compatibility of. Experiment rules: anyone who takes a lustrous but expendable coin, dunks it in olive oil, and takes before and after pictures will win the argument. Except for the issue of long-term effects.
PLease note as I've mentioned many times, any product that is manufactured is seldom and at times improbable that it is the same every time. Olive Oils are a manufactured product and although some may say Virgin Olive Oil, Extra Virgin Olive Oil, etc. the finished product may well be different from different manufacturers. In the referenced LINK that discusses Olive Oil note carefully this statement. "Extra virgin olive oil must have less than .8% free fatty acid but some have less than .1%" Again, note the SOME HAVE part. This too is a notation of the possible differences in that substance. By this I mean what works for some may well ruin something done by someone else with what they think is the same product. That is the worse part of statements made by so many when they say things like use Olive Oil, Lighter fluid, fingernail polish, dish soap and on and on and on with STUFF. Go to Walmart, Kmart, Target, etc and look in the soap aisles. Note the many, many different types of dish soaps for example. Think they are all the same? Not a chance in H................. As to cleaning coins. I suggest just use a wire wheel and battery acid. Why not do a great job of distruction.
