Cleaning your coins.

Thanx for the advice, if i had to take some crap off my silver coin that is being oxidized a strong orange color what should i use to take it off, the Q-tips or cotton balls or...?

 

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I have to respectfully disagree. They could not tell. I have seen my share of magnified surfaces before and after to know.but as that is my opinion, you have yours. I do agree that, on the whole, with modern coins most cleaning including distilled water should be avoided if possible. I just dont want crusty dirt on my coins, tone and patina are one thing...actual dirt I cant allow to remain.

 

Thanx for your help I appreciate it, the orange color though is not toning, looks more like rust, eating away at the coin and taking pieces off of it. Now what should I do without using chemicals if possible.

 

Prof, I have seen what you are talking about (I think). I had a silver Roman Denarius and a Silver Parthan coin that had some spotty orange yellow corrossion that looked almost like rust on it in places. I was told Its not toning but most likely a reaction of some sort, possibly with the metal it is alloyed with, probably copper. The coins I had it on were very very very old and the mixture in these coins (later empire in both cases) are all over the chart, less silver, more copper, etc...I may have missed it but what coin is this on? can you take a picture of the spot?

I can tell you that the two silver coins I have that showed spots like that, they didnt spread and I was told not to bother with it.

 

here is a great site for an overview of these metals, their properties and how they react. Silver is, on the whole, non-corrosive and doesnt oxidize or form a carbonate but it will react with substances like sulphur which will cause it to tone. This is why, IMO, if there is any corrosion or oxidation its more likely the other metal in the alloy.

http://www.du.edu/~jcalvert/phys/copper.htm

 

Yah this is a silver dime, nothing really "special" and yah it has some copper in it, i found it in my change a while back so many fingers touched the face of it, the rust crap is like you said probably to the copper in the alloy so what do i do, anyone please help me out!:headbang:

 

My spots didnt look like that, the coin was almost completely toned silver save for one spot of brighter yellow / orange [see pic]. I was told not to mess with it, that it wont spred. I was told that it might be caused by a bad mix in the alloy where there is more copper concentrated in spots and they corrode.





dont know if this is similar but this spot hasnt spread.

Like said GDJMSP said, it could also be where is was in contact for a long time with some other corrosive metal.

 

I live in Canada so I have a mostly Canadian coin collection.
http://members.shaw.ca/kcic1/coins3.html
^^^^^^^^^
The coin I am refering to is the quarter and the dime, i think the comp is 0.500silver and 0.500copper. Its not toning i'm sure of it, its not evenly spread, and when i swabbed it with a wet Q-tip along part of the damaged coin the orange/black crap came off really easily. Did I F*** up and remove toning?

 

its the set of coins at the top of the link

 

Sell it or spend it and buy yourself a nice one!....since its "nothing really special" then I doubt that it would cost much to replace it and then you don't need to clean it also.

Speedy

 

Well, I cant see it very well, the pic it so small...it certainly isnt wha tI was thinking it was.

 

with unnatural oxidizing how does one go about cleaning it, its relatively soft and spread unevely. I want to use these crappy coins to practice removing the junkoff of b4 i get some really nice coins and really mess them up, someone help me out please.

 

My experience says that we should avoid cleaning coins at all costs. I've cleaned several low value coins and results have ranged from reasonable to terrible. Tonned coins are the ones that suffered the most as they looked washed out.
Someone told me copper coins can be cleaned with gasoline to remove dirt or hot olive oil to remove the green oxidation. Tried the last one and it worked now time will tell if that green oxidation will come back. This was the only time that cleaning a coin was a good thing.

 

yeah.i dont clean coins anymore.

 

I say clean all coins... Use #000 Steel wool. You can buy it at both Lowes and Home Depot. Ace Hardware as well. It works just as well on that PROOF SET or Comemmorative you bought from the US Mint last year, or that MS65 or above Morgan. That slight bit of haze or brownish tarnish on the silver coins, and tht brown looking tarnish on copper coins needs to be removed immediatly!!!! If you have some really rare 19th Century coins that have some really stubborn tarnish or spots, I recommend using a wire wheel on a power drill. Ugly dull coins only hurt the hobby. Shine up those coins!!!! Especially the really really rare and expensive older coins.

 

I almost forgot to add.... You can use a file or some 80 grit sandpaper to remove those nicks in the rim. 180 sandpaper makes those nicks in the cheek of your hi-grade Morgan dollar go away. 600 grit sandpaper will polish it up.

Paper money collectors can use a school eraser to remove dirt and fingerprints, Don`t forget to wash that dirty note in warm soapy water and press those wrinkles out with your everyday clothes iron.

Of course you should do none of these things. All these things are done everyday by both newbie collectors unknowingly trying to "pretty-up" their coins, and by crook-scammer sellers to the newbie and often times sophistcated collector.

If you have to ask "Should I clean my coins?" then you obviously should not. Certain kinds of cleaning are sometimes both acceptable and needed. This should only be undertaken by knowledgable and experienced collectors.

99.99% of the time a coin should NEVER be cleaned.

 

Want to know

I've never cleaned my coins but I have some Barber dimes that look like dog dung and I dont think a proper cleaning can make them any worse. Some are totally black mostly on one side, I dont know what this black stuff is but its not pretty. Where detail is visible they for the most part look pretty darn good. The coin that I am most concered about is a 1900 o in v. fine on the obv. but the rev. has a brown coating which resembles a badly rusted piece of steel. Any ideas on what causes one side of these coins to be all black and in one case brown??? Thanks for any opinions or suggestions.

 

I had some coins I tossed in a baggie on my boat during a Caribbean trip. When I came across them years later they had developed something that sounds like your problem. One was a silver coin with what looked like a layer of thick iron rust. This was a common date Washington quarter so I decided to clean it. After starting mildly, I ended up with some pretty strong cleaning. And the coin underneath was seriously eroded. I came to the conclusion (just a best guess) that it was electrolytic corrosion caused by a couple of pure nickel Canadian quarters in the bag. However there was also a variety of Bahamian coins, some copper, in the mix.