Acetone Mystery

There is one major mystery left to be solved when using acetone to bathe a coin.

In all of the research I have done I have not found this one answer.

How do you hold a proof coin when rinsing with acetone to not deposit either plastic from gloves, marks from tweezers/tongs, or fingerprints/oils from holding the edge? And how to dry it without it collecting dust or scratches?

It is a silver proof with some hazing.

Thank you in advance for any help. This may also help people searching for these answers.

 

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Take a small piece of cloth/cotton ball soaked in acetone and clean the oils off your fingertip that you will use to handle the edge of the coin. Acetone will remove the oils in your skin quite quickly and is why women will rub hand cream onto their finger tips immediately after using it to remove their nail polish.

 

I use a shot glass for an acetone bath. Pick a glass that will hold the coin by the edges and not let the surfaces touch anything.
Acetone will not help much with haze unless it is PVC related.

 

What alurid said about acetone removing oils from your fingertips.

As for this . . .

. . . just hold the coin (by the rim) in the air. Acetone evaporates in a matter of seconds.

 

Thanks for the info. What exactly is the haziness on silver proof coins? It's not a PVC issue, at least I don't think, as it's a newer (circa 1980s/1990s) commemorative dollar. Some that I have bought are pristine, while some show a bit of haziness under very bright LED flashlights. I have one that I at least want to experiment on as it doesn't seem to have much value beyond the silver content.

 

Thank you. I was thinking this might be the answer I was looking for. As a teen, I probably dunked my fingers straight into the acetone to get off stuborn nail polish, so I'm comfortable with a little exposure

 

Some say that MS70 is a good choice for haze but I don't know.

 

Is the hazing on proof silver just the beginning of oxidation, maybe due to humidity in storage? I have been searching around but see a lot of different explanations.

 

I did see a post somewhere about that, but then when I was reading reviews there were some people claiming the formula had changed which made me skittish.

 

As I understand it, most hazing on proofs is actually toning, not organic deposits, so acetone is unlikely to help. Careful dipping (in a chemical dip that removes toning) can take care of it, but you'd want to practice quite a lot with coins that aren't valuable. (Note that I'm repeating what I've read here, not speaking from personal experience.)

If you are using acetone, use three separate containers. Soak in the first one, fish it out, and put it in the second. Fish it out of that, put it in the third, then take it out and let it dry on edge.

The first acetone bath will have removed nearly all the organic stuff from the coin, and when you pick it out, that bath will remove most of the surface oils from your fingers. The second bath will greatly dilute whatever's left on the coin or your fingers, and the third will dilute it even more. At that point, even if you let a drop of it dry on the coin, it probably won't leave a perceptible mark -- but you won't have to do that, because acetone has such low surface tension that it'll run right off.

 

If you rinse a coin in MS70 won't it then be "cleaned" if you submit it to a TPGS?

 

It depends on how long the MS70 soak is and if you’re able to rinse off all of the residue.

 

I know it's better to hold a coin in your fingers, but I won't put my fingers into a strong alkali like MS70. For that, I'd use soft tongs or rubber/plastic gloves.

 

I recently had a friend suggest to me that I check out and purchase a set of BAMBOO tongs. I did so and they work, the small ones will pick up half dollars and smaller and the large ones which I have NOT USED will pick up Morgans etc. (I cringe at the thought of using Acetone on proofs)
Stay Safe
Has anyone else suffered sun burn from the refrigerator lights?

 

How come?

 

I just have a fear of something going wrong and ruining the coin. I try to be very judicious in purchasing non-slabbed proofs and execute due diligence before purchase and I am a true believer in "Murphy's Law"
Have a great holiday/Merry Christmas
Phil

edited to fix quote tags

 

I thought I read here that a isopropyl alcohol soak will can also remove haze.

 

If you use unpowdered polyethylene gloves rather than nitrile or latex, nothing will be transferred. Some solvents will slowly soften it, some solvents may slowly penetrate a thin layer, and some strong oxidizers will slowly eat it away. But nothing dissolves it. They’re readily available and cheap. Biggest disadvantage is they are not as form-fitting as nitrile or latex. Hint: for brief use, use one size smaller than what you normally wear. See the pic.

Cal

 

And that's a perfectly sensible approach. But if you ever do need to get something off a proof coin, acetone is probably the least risky liquid you can put on a proof. (With the possible exception of copper proofs, but I don't know anything that's foolproof on copper...)