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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;-jeffB, post: 3355665, member: 27832&quot;]As I understand it, when you&#039;re canning <i>food</i> in Mason jars, you&#039;re just wanting to make sure that no living microbes are inside. To do that, you sterilize the jar and lid, put the food in while it&#039;s hot enough to kill everything, and then seal it up. The &quot;vacuum seal&quot; isn&#039;t really to hold a &quot;vacuum&quot;; it&#039;s to suck the lid down hard enough to ensure that the lid and gasket are in firm contact all around, with no holes for air (and microbes) to get in or out once it&#039;s cooled off. If the lid is pushed down in the middle, you can tell the vacuum is still there, which means no leaks. If there aren&#039;t any leaks big enough to let in air, there aren&#039;t any leaks big enough to let in microbes.</p><p><br /></p><p>For <i>coins</i>, you don&#039;t care about microbes, but you do care about air, moisture, and reactive contaminants (especially stuff carrying sulfur). If you&#039;ve got a tight seal -- and those silicone gaskets should certainly provide that -- you&#039;ve probably got a pretty good start.</p><p><br /></p><p>I was starting to say a lot more about reactions, partial pressure of oxygen, and diffusion rates, but I was confusing <i>myself</i>, so I decided it probably wouldn&#039;t help anybody else. <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie11" alt=":rolleyes:" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" />[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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