I was looking around for a pair of white cotton gloves and can't seem to find any. I checked in my local stores with no luck. So, does anyone have a site or store i could pick some up at? Would it be better to buy one pair and reuse them or get a box and change gloves each time?
This is where I bought mine... there may be cheaper alternative sites. http://www.wizardcoinsupply.com/product/cotton-gloves.html
When you see them getting dirty, and they will. You can wash them. But they are so inexpensive that a lot of folks just throw them away rather that risk using gloves washed in detergent on your coins.
Here's a BIN on eBay... 12 pair for a little over fifty cents a pair (includes shipping). I'm sure larger quantities would bring the piece price down considerably. http://cgi.ebay.com/12-Pairs-Mens-W...836?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item45f8ff5a7c
Although cotton gloves are traditional, I prefer the disposable powder free nitrile gloves from Costco. They are single use, so don't gather dust like cotton gloves. Remember dust is really microscopic quartz with a hardness of 7, well above copper or silver. Cotton is too expensive ( compared to nitrile) to single use and dispose. Washing and drying cotton gloves can also lead to possible contamination. Cotton can absorb salty perspiration from the hands, etc. The nitrile gloves I mentioned have textured fingertips, which I think hold better than the plain cotton gloves. But, it isn't the cool old fashioned expert's look. White cotton gloves scream "expert", my blue-violet nitrile gloves say " industrial" Jim
JP's corner. http://www.jpscorner.com/ I've bought from them a few times and they have decent deals on most stuff. Not worth it if you're just buying the gloves ($1.25 a pair) cause of shipping but if you need coin flips or tubes or boxes, order it all at once and its a good deal. You'll get your shipment in like 2 or 3 days too.
Oh... I'll use a pair for a few months and then throw them away. If you buy in bulk, a dozen pairs is 9.95.
thank you for the replys. browsing around on the sites petro89 & jloring gave me and found myself another question. I want to buy a magnifying glass, any preference on those? Should i spring a few extra bucks on a nice one or just stick to "cheap and gets the job done"? Thanks again you have been very helpful
Your going to want a few different magnifications, or atleast many people including myself prefer this. Usually people use 5x and 10x. 5x is good for looking at the coin as a whole(for grading and minor detail observation), and 10x is better for focusing on small parts such as errors. As far as 5x goes, they are cheap. I use this one and absolutely love it:http://www.jpscorner.com/Magnifiers_and_Loupes.htm It's the Bausch & Lomb Packette. It's the last one in that first group of magnifiers. For 10x the Hastings Triplet magnifiers are supposed to be superior. I'll admit that I went with a cheaper 10x to start with, but I also realize it can be better. That being said I will get a Hastings soon. So if the price for those works for you then just start out right and get one. Those are a little farther down on that same page. You can also go higher in magnification if its friendlier towards your eyes, but atleast for errors I have seen that the general consensus is that if it is not easily visible at 10x at the highest it is not usually worth it. There may be differing opinions, but thats the majority of what I've seen.
Try your local drugstore, in the makeup section. Apparently cotton gloves are used for some function by the makeup-wearing set.
The only time I use cotton gloves is to insert coins in danscos. I have gone away from them in favor of very clean fingers and a felt pad underneath as an added layer of safety. I can get a much better hold of the coin bare fingered -- I never felt comfortable handling coins with cotton gloves. Too little feedback.
i'm using them to put coins in folders. pushing down right on the face figured it would be good to wear gloves for it. I never even though of going to a dug store. I went around checking all the supermarkets.
The make-up wearing set use them to soften their hands..we find them near the nail polish in any drug store..
But no expert would be caught dead wearing them Now think about that for a minute. Let me ask you - would you pick up a coin and touch the face with a cotton cloth ? No ? Why not ? Well the same thing applies when you touch the face with those cotton gloves.
I also use these kind of gloves from Costco. Very inexpensive so if you use them once and then throw them away it's no big deal and if you have a Costco nearby then it's very convenient to buy them
I has nothing to do with cotton. The first rule of coin collecting is that you never touch the surface of a coin - with anything. Fabric or cloth of any kind can and will leave hairlines or fine scratches on the coin. Your fingers will leave fingerprints on the coin that will be etched into the metal. Nitrile gloves and latex gloves will leave smudges on the coin. That's why you never touch the surface of a coin. Because whatever you touch it with - it will do something detrimental to the coin. When coin albums/folders were first invented they were invented so people could keep track of their coins at a glance and see what they still needed to complete a set. But the coins that were put into those albums all came from pocket change, so touching their surface was no big deal - they had already been touched a million times. So touching them one more time to push them down into the hole of the album sure wasn't going to hurt them any. But in today's world, people tend to try and collect the nicest coins they can. AU and BU coins, even Proof coins. But albums were never intended to be used with these types of coins because it is impossible to get such a coin into an album without doing somnething you should never do - touch the surface of the coin, with anything !
