Citric Acid in Coin Conservation

An old time collector passed away & his wife gave me his coin cleaning supplies. I disposed of much of it because it was stored in un-labeled jars. Amongst the supplies was this product that is intended to remove mineral deposits from pipes. He had 1-1/2 bottles of the stuff.

I would only use the stuff on pipes.

 

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I'm pretty sure that it would etch the metal faster than vinegar does, and I'm not sure it would give any better results. I've got a bunch of brown nickels, though, so I may give it a try at some point. I'll look into procedures for detoxifying it when I'm done, too.

 

Just rinse with water to neutralize it. You can buy it at the hardware store sold as wood blesch

 

I like to buy these in dry crystal form... This way I can control how potent the mix is... Makes for better experimenting haha!

 

Actually oxalic is a weak acid, although it is stronger than acetic (vinegar is 5% acetic acid). However oxalic acid is also a reducing agent which will take some metallic oxides back to the metallic state.

 

Oxalic acid does have toxicity concerns, especially for anyone with kidney disease.

 

So don't drink the solution after your done with it.

 

And you had better not eat rhubarb pie if you have kidney problems.

 

As long as you don't add the leaves to the pie, there should be little danger. The LD50 is about 10 lbs of leaves/day, and the oxalic acid in the reddish stalks is only about 3% of the leaves. I have only ate it once as a kid,and never will again.

Yes if the kidney disfunction is critical, common sense says not to even eat the stalks.

 

I was just wondering if you ended up trying this and how it worked out for you. I also have some brown rusty Buffalos I could experiment with as it really does not matter at the point of condition they are currently in. Thanks in advance. Tom