First attempt with acetone/water soaking/dipping

Alright, so I decided to give this a try. Broke open a roll of junk silver washington quarters, and picked out 5 that were pretty ugly. Tried to get 5 different types of ugly, to see what worked best.

The method I used was a 24 hour acetone soak, then dipping in a bowl of warm water and lightly brushing them with a supersoft brush, then an 8-10 hour soak in the acetone again, a second underwater brushing, then a quick dip in the acetone and holding by the rim to dry.

Probably messed up in there somewhere, but here are the before and after pics of the whole group, and then just after pics of each individual coin. Please let me know if they "look" cleaned to your eyes.

The acetone did not do much for some of the coins, though...


Before:
After:

 

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And the closeups:

 

I should have done closeups of the before pics. I will next time.

 

I'm a bit leery of the brush. If the supersoft brush picks up some grit, it could still make scratches. But I am also just learning. What will you try next?

 

I'm going to pick out some more messy junk silver, probably. The quarter in the lower left, the 4th one, did well in the acetone. The rest, the stains may have lightened a bit, but not much else happened. I'm going to look for ones with gunk that might go away. I cannot really think of any good ways to vary up what I have already done... I'm not willing to use any other "cleaners" or dips, it's just not a good idea, IMO.

I also want to find a few damaged coins that still have some decent toning, I want to make SURE that the acetone won't get rid of toning before I risk any better coins on even an acetone dip. I have quite a few GOOD coins that I should probably at least dip, just in case of oils or pvc residue, but I am waiting until I feel confident to do that. Some of them are multi-hundred dollar coins.

So for now, just testing several times on different coins I'd just sell for melt anyways.

Note - I did NOT use distilled water on these, because I do not have any right now. I'll be using distilled as soon as I can get to a store and pick some up, though. Doubt it would make a difference on these.

 

Never thought of giving this a try, not sure if I will but it's an interesting idea

 

It's what I've seen recommended here on the forums. Even GDJMSP, who is more concerned with what can have an effect on a coin than anyone I've ever met, has said that Acetone itself is not a problem. That's what made me willing to consider it, honestly

 

Acetone bath is regarded as safe on coins by most collectors. I probably wouldn't have used a brush (no matter how soft). Even though the brush may help remove some of the gunk loosened by the acetone, I feel like any contact with the surface of the coin from anything other than acetone is damaging.

I've heard other collector's mention that coins shouldn't be rinsed after an acetone bath. Especially with anything other than distilled water. However, I've also heard that leaving the dried acetone can cause discoloration on the surface of the coin if not rinsed. I don't know what to believe. Unless the coin was already considered "junk" I probably wouldn't try acetone.

 

With the exception to copper as it turns it pink

 

Good point That's why I am personally using only silver, for now.

 

Nice test. I would forget the water and the brush. Two or three baths in fresh acetone for an hour or so each will remove most organic stuff off the coin. The acetone in the first bath is going to be filled with junk that can stay on the surface of the coin. The second bath will leave it much cleaner.

Acetone will not effect toning because it's not organic. Organic stuff can hide the true color of a coin, so it may have a different color after a bath.
Lets look at the second 1964-D. The nasty stuff is gone but now those areas are a bit shiny and no longer match the color of the rest of the coin.

 

I believed this was the reason for 3 steps with the acetone.

The first soak will dissolve organic crud, so the coin will be bathing in a soup of diluted dirt. If you take the coin out and let it dry, some of the dissolved crud will redeposit on the coin as the acetone evaporates.

Moving to a second bath lets this be further diluted and might let a bit more organic crud dissolve.

I have seen recommendations that the third step is to pour clean acetone over the still-wet coin when you take it out of the second bath. This removes any suspended and dissolved junk from that stage.

Then the coin is held by opposite rims so the acetone can evaporate. At this point there should be no remaining haze due to the acetone treatment.

 

As to the acetone and "pink coloration" on copper, the only paper on it is a non-peer reviewed paper written with the support of a company to disrespect acetone cleaning of copper before making joints and use their processes instead, and even there , the conditions of the test used extremes not obtained in collector storage, andinserts bias into the results. Look up the paper on the internet if in doubt. Pure acetone can not, in conditions normally used for coin storage, interact with metallic compounds. It will only affect toning if the toning was artificial to start, or non-rinsing allowed dissolved 'toning' artifacts to adhere as the acetone evaporated.
Jim

 

I would not use any brush. More than a 20-30 min soak is overkill. Longer time won't make a difference on the problems you're looking at. I don't soak, I just roll a qtip dipped in acetone over both sides. Roll, not swab/slide. Sometimes the rolling won't work so you have to ask yourself: should I swab the stuff off and risk leaving signs of cleaning? Or should I just leave it? If it's PVC (you'll see light blue coloration on the q tip), I do whatever is necessary with the q tip to remove it, starting with rolling. I won't leave PVC on my coins

 

?????? Are you saying acetone turns copper pink??

 

Doug is a wise young man...burn his words into your brain.

Most importantly, Think preparation!

Depending on the coin, there are many steps and different chemicals to use before the final dip (if needed at all).

 

I have used acetone on THOUSANDS of copper coins with no ill-effect. I agree with you 100%!

 

Distilled or deionized water is a good idea, but if you use tap water and blot off any excess so that it does not evaporate and drop out any dissolved salts (generally hundredths of a percent anyway), you should be good to go.

 

Don't think so.