Acetone Cleaning -- Your thoughts?

The question is much more complicated than one would think at first glance. Yeah, I know, half a dozen folks are gonna tell me you can do this or you can do that or you can do something else. But that's the whole point. For once you do one thing, then you need to do something else to counteract the first thing, and then something to counteract that, and so on and so on. It is virtually a never ending cycle. Especially when you condsider that pretty much all of the things you do can be detected by those with experience.

Inevitably the goal is to have a coin that does not appear to have been messed with. But that's the hard part, you can always tell if a coin has been messed with if you have the experience to do so. And that's the dangerous part - because not everybody has that experience. So some people, a lot more than one might think, can be fooled.

Now you mention market acceptable. Yes, there are things you can do to a coin that are considered to be market acceptable, or at least sometimes market acceptable. Among them are using a coin dip - use it correctly and nobody cares, at least as long as the dip does not reveal underlying issues that may or may not be problems. Use it incorrectly and everybody cares and the coin is not market acceptable.

There is also acetone, which was what started this thread. Yes, acetone can be used to remove some things from the surface of a coin. But acetone has its drawbacks too. Again, there is a proper way to use it and wrong way to use it. And before I get flack for not explaining the proper way - I HAVE EXPLAINED IT, more times than I can count. I have also explained the wrong way.

Then there are the oil products like Coin Care, Blue Ribbon, mineral oil, vaseline etc etc. Yes, sometimes these products can be used on a coin and the coin is market acceptable. But there are plenty of times when it is not market acceptable, many would argue that the latter occurs far more often than the former.

But if you are trying to remove oil from a coin that is deemed not to be market acceptable, then more likely than not just about anything you do is going to make the coin worse than it was to begin with. But if you ar ebound and determined to try then you have to use a product that has the same base as what you are trying to remove. As has been explained many times - like dissolves like. So to remove oil, you have to use an oil.

That's where the problem I mentioned in the beginning comes into play. If you use an oil to remove an oil, what do you use to remove THAT oil ? Rather obviously you have to find something that does not leave a residue, film or other contaminant behind. That's pretty tough to do because the only things that exist that can do this are toxic. And even then, if not used exactly correctly, you'll still mess up the coin.

Sounds like a vicious circle doesn't it ? That's because it is a vicious circle. And it is a circle that it is best if you don't step into it to begin with.

Now depending on your perspective - who's got who ?

 

Hmmmm - no answer ? Sure looked like an answer to me. Did you somehow miss this paragraph ? Double check the underlined part.

And I wasn't trying to explain that putting oil on the coin was complicated - I was trying to explain that using the stuff to get it OFF was complicated. Because about 90% of the time the stuff you use to remove the oil leaves a residue on the coin all of its own. And then you have to get that off.

 

Good Lord - what part of this do you not understand ? "the only things that exist that can do this are toxic".

Do I have to just spell it out ? NO ! There is nothing else.

 

The answer was responsive 13 posts ago.

As to your new question, the reason you have heard of so many different things being used by the mint is because they keep experimenting with new cleaning solutions, burnishing solutions and lubricating solutions all the time and have for years. So it depends on when (what year) as well. Again, a complicated answer because it is a complicated question.

It also depends on which type of planchet is being washed as they use different solutions for different planchets.

And we must be clear on this point, quite often, it is not even the mint doing the washing of the planchets. It is the private contractor that the mint buys the planchets from. And it also depends on whether you are talking about business strikes, Mint Sets, or Proofs. All are treated differently and often the work is performed by different entities, meaning either the mint or one of their contractors.

Now, answering your question is more difficult because the mint is very tight lipped about about giving out such information. Quite often they flat out refuse to divulge the information.

The only information that I know to be documented by the mint would be for the 2009 Proof cents. And then, only part of the information is available, that being the final rinse only. For the final rinse they use alcohol. But we do no tknow what kind of alcohol or if there were any admixtures in the alcohol.