Hello all, I had wanted to ask a few opinion's on the subject of cleaning your coins. I have always heard never clean a coin. Cause it will be devalued. However that kinda begs the question of what kinda /or type of cleaning. I am not referring to any harsh chemicals of any sort. What I am about to present is based on what I was told along time ago. And would like any input or feedback from the below statement. Ivory bar soap has no chemicals or abrasives. use Ivory bar soap with warm water and let coins soap for an hour, then use a tooth brush to lightly brush each side of the coin. rinse easily with warm water. Then dry, with a padding motion, "do not rubb coins with a towel". As this will/can damage a coin...just remove most dirt,grease,and grim, without any damage. Ok so what do you all think? Charles
I think the Ivory will leave a film on your coins that you won't be able to rinse off without rubbing the surfaces...which you will do with a tooth brush. That's a big "No" on many levels for the type of coins I collect/deal with...but the ancient collectors might have different opinions.
@ stldanceartistANA # BR-315762 I am just asking here. but how can a tooth brush hurt metal if your lightly brushing? Or it there something else?
Because it will leave tiny hairline scratches on the surface of your coin. The surfaces of coins have tiny metallic flow lines that cause the cartwheel effect of luster...I'd think the toothbrush will damage those little flow lines and disrupt the luster. I suppose I could concede that a person with a certain level of expert skill could use a toothbrush on a coin without damaging the surface...but that person is probably wearing a mask or a cape, and as such, probably doesn't have time to clean coins.
I share Stldanceartists comments above, but certainly don't wish to squish experimentation. Go to a bank for a roll or collect some BU 2015 cents and try your procedure, then put aside for a year or two to allow for chemical reactions. The 'classic' labeled soap contained salt and silicates, because whether they say so or not, soap without even mild abrasive doesn't work well. Also the pH was about 8.5 so it wasn't neutral either. The new Ivory products contain organic fatty acids, and similar acids are found in many oily agents used to clean coins in the past, but changed the color over time ( that is why I mentioned setting them aside for a period of time. Many don't realize that plant fibers such as cotton , plant parts such as thorns and most plastic bristles, often have a hardness greater than that of copper, silver and gold. Lighter brushing would produce lighter marks, so you would have to experiment. They are your coins , and you seem to understand the problems, so please use common recent coins, in case damage does occur in your experiments.
@ desertgem your comment "so please use common recent coins, in case damage does occur in your experiments." thank you .. did not think of that.. well said.
chaz - There are methods, but only a few, that can be used to properly clean coins and cause no harm to the coins. And even with those few methods you still have to know what you are doing and how to do it correctly. In a nutshell, there are more "don'ts" (do not do) than I can count. While the "dos" (do this) can be counted on 1 hand, and still have fingers left over. There have been many threads and discussions on this subject, countless numbers of them. So rather than going through it all again, just do a search for threads on proper cleaning.
"Ivory bar soap has no chemicals or abrasives." Pretty much the only thing that has no chemicals is a pure vacuum and that isn't Ivory soap. Don't pay attention to marketing; it is all made of chemicals of one name or another.
@ GDJMSP Ok Ty, I'll try searching the forums, for some threads, And yes I would of thought that this subject has been brought up allot more than once. My only purpose at this point to any cleaning any coin. is to remove any easily removable road dirt type stuff just to see it better. not to present it better. maybe that will help. For my intentions? Charles.
did a quick google search...... The Ivory soap bar (classic) contained: sodium tallowate, sodium cocoate or sodium palm kernelate, water, sodium chloride, sodiumsilicate, magnesium sulfate, and fragrance. and Based on the analysis given in U.S. Patent No. 3,933,780 , the composition of Ivory Soap was determined to be 12.8% Lauric Acid, 7.5% Myristic Acid, 0.6% Myristoleic Acid, 21.8% Palmitic Acid, 3.7% Palmitoleic Acid, 13.6 % Stearic Acid, 31.6% Oleic Acid, 3.1% Linoleic Acid, and 5.2% Other (includes C6-C10). All these acids are as their sodium salts.
I think there are times when it is necessary, I bought some gold coins that had tape residue on them, the owner used tape to hold them in a homemade folder.I dip the gold coins in acetone for 10 sec and dab them with qtip.they were sent off for grading and came back ms60 and ms62 with no mention of cleaning.
Hey Charles, take a look at these. The one on the right is the cleaned one. Hard to tell at quick glance, I know. I post these "close" examples to show primarily the more subtle distinctions in the surfaces and to say you never want to get hung up on the label. The left one may even be a little cleaned. You want to look to the degree of surface compromise, and offer, accordingly. Both are collectable, in my opinion, the second is just more so for the livelier surface. Look at how the light reflects off the surface, that's kind of how you tell. Look at the cleaned reverse. That surface will never get back the reflectivity it once had, it will rather just remain flat and dull. That's irreversible. In a nut, it's why we don't like to clean them. Hope this helps.
