Hi all it's been a very VERY long time since I've posted on here. I've been asked by my Dad to clean up some of his coins he's bought and by clean I don't mean anything harsh really. No pastes or scrubs or whatever "dipping" is which sounds harsh to me or anything over board. I just want to do what is good "conservation" for the coins as I might be the one to end up with them anyways but also do a good job for Dad to see what gems he's been able to pick up in his coin hunting. I've heard in the past something about soaking coins in Acetone for a while then something bout rinsing in "De-ionized water" I've got no real clue about that or how to make it or if I could just use distilled water from the store instead. The Coins I'm working on are some Morgan Silver Dollars, Buffalo Nickels, and miscellaneous 90% silver dimes and quarters. It's stuff he's picked up at local estate auctions that have crud and build up. Some are actually in fairly great MS condition like they were just made and now have some years of piled up gunk! I know unlike in the 1800's or later and before they used to just polish coins with a rag is a BIG NO-NO! lol. I know I could just google it but to be honest I'd rather come in here and get verified information on how to do it all instead of just blindly trusting some googled info to some information that might just be the worse thing to do in "conservation" of said coins.
Not sure of your knowledge level, his intentions, or the value of coins, but you may want to post some pics/descriptions before you do anything.
Search for acetone, and you'll find lots of threads and posts. It's safe for all metal coins. It will dissolve some plastics and is very flammable as are its vapors. It's completely miscible (i.e. dissolves completely) with water. De-ionized water is just water that has had minerals and some organic compounds removed. Distilled water is even better to use on coins. Before attempting to clean coins, even with coin-safe solvents like acetone and water, do your homework and read-up on the subject. Cal
More reading would be good. Also, knowing how many coins we are talking about here is important. Advice on how to deal with 10 coins would be different than advice on how to deal with 10,000 coins. Both water and acetone are pretty much without risk, and the order in which to use them isn't very important. If I were dealing with one coin at a time, I would probably do an overnight soak in either distilled or deionized water, followed by a rinse with fresh water of the same kind and then patting them dry with a soft cloth before giving them an overnight acetone soak followed by another patdown.
+1 to what Kentucky said. But just to add on, Dipping in the right solvent is less of an affront to the coin Gods than Pastes & Scrubs. It can be done well with knowledge....and only do it on AU+ coins of little numismatic value though.
