okay everyone i wanted to ask a question about cleaning coins. I have heard you should never clean a coin and if you think you should to ask a knowledgable coin dealer beforehand. I was wondering what types of cleaning will not damage a coin. I have heard acetone to remove PVC damage and i was wondering if this is true and if there was anything else. Thanks in advance. The reason i am asking is because i will be visiting home over the weekend and getting all of my old coins from childhood and i do remember some were pretty dirty/damaged. I dont remember to what extent but i wanted some more info so i would have a better guess when i got them. If they are bad i will more than likely post some pictures of them here to see what all of you think before i go ahead and clean them as long as i can find my camera:kewl:
Keep in mind that what you do to a coin can ruin it's future collect ability. Best to hold off till you know what to do. Experiment on coins that are the same denomination from circulation first. Then you will see which direction to go. Some have different suggestions on how to clean/ruin a coin. So I would hold off till you know what you are doing first. I've seen some coin cleaned by conservation sources that didn't really make the coin a step up. Many a coin has been ruined with acid based cleaners/baking powder/comet/pencil erasers/solvents that scratch/turn them an un natural color/flake off the outer skin of blackened coins/strip on the out side layer of the coin and just make them fit for circulation. Best not to clean them. The grade will stay the same. If you clean them they will drop a few grades or render a coin to a state where graders would even grade them. The ball is in your court.
Absolutely none of them - unless you know what you are doing and have experience with it - before you do it. And even if you do know what you are doing and have the experience, there are very, very few cleaning methods that will not harm the coin. And depending on you look at it, there may only be 1 way - dipping the coin. Now you can dip the coin in distilled water, acetone, xylene or a commercial coin dip. But that's about it. Now distilled water is not going to hurt any coin. But it isn't going to remove, or clean, much either. Acetone will only remove oils and some organic substances. But it can cause some copper coins to turn weird colors. Acetone will remove nothing else. Xylene is much like the acetone. A commercial coin dip is an acid. But if used properly it will not harm the coin. But if used improperly it will destroy the coin. Yes it's true that acetone will remove PVC from a coin. But any damage caused that by PVC being on the coin can never be fixed. Once damaged it's damaged forever - period, end of story. All acetone can do is stop any more damage from being done.
thanks for the info. I will see what condition they are in when i get them here and if any are really bad i will post up some pictures and see what everyone else thinks again i haven't seen them in probably 7-8 years and didnt collect for around 10-12 years so for all i know what i thought was bad when i was younger may have just been toning who knows i will be sure to update everyone though
I left the most important part out. Even of you know how to do anything & everything reagrding the methods of cleaning - you still have to know how to determine which coins would benefit from proper cleaning and which coins would be worse off with proper cleaning. That is probably the hardest part of all. And it can only be learned from experience.
Do NOT clean your coins! However, conservation is acceptible. Always follow the solvent polarity ladder before even thinking about trying other methods. Soak in the following order, an hour or less will do: 1) distilled water 2) acetone 3) xylene
That IS the most important part! Many nice coins have been destroyed by the ignorant. Also remember, once you clean a coin there's no going back! The damage is done, the coin has been ruined.
I was going to ask...once a coin is cleaned, it's ruined? So after time, it will not return to original tones or colors...?
No, it won't, for two reasons. 1 - tone/color is 100% dependant on a plethora of environmental conditions. And environmental conditions over any specific time period can never be precisely duplicated again. 2 - once harshly cleaned any luster on the coin is destroyed. And without luster previous toning can never be duplicated. Then you also have the issues of the damage to the coin that is caused by the harsh cleaning. As already mentioned, any luster is destroyed. And typically, after harsh cleaning, the coin will be covered with hairlines and fine scratches. And once they are on the coin they are there forever.
Nope....listen to what Doug said. That's the bad thing about cleaning. Once the damage is done it is done. That's why retoning and recoloring is so popular. People screw up coins everyday, regret it, and then try to "save" the coin. Just look on ebay, I venture to say more than half the coins listed there have been cleaned and/or doctored in some way.
yeah I never suggested they would ever return to the same condition, just curious if over time it would retone at least a different more original condition
Cleaning ( not conservation) exposes fresh metal, no longer protected by the patina ( previously reacted metal), so it will react with the environment and will develop a new patine. Whether the appearance will be pleasing is luck. Copper is most susceptible. Silver acid dipped coins ( done properly) are viable immediately in the market. With copper it may take decades to get back to acceptability, if at all.
this is what I was thinking Would, say for example, a 1922 Lincoln be worthless in cleaned condition? Or should I say worth no more then face...?
It can vary greatly depending on the specific coin, the details grade, and what was done to it. Value can be from 20% to 80% of what it would be normally.
so depending on the coin, mintage, etc...it can still have value. A cleaned common date is pretty much a waste...
Yeah. There are examples of cleaned coins that are worth thousands, but that's because the uncleaned examples are worth tens of thousands. Always think of it this way. You can have a coin that is ugly as sin but worth $1000. You try to clean it up to make it look better. Result - it looks better, but now it's only worth $200. Should you have cleaned it ?
