(I posted on CU too, so please excuse the duplicate) I've seen many references to lacquered coins from back in the day. It was used as a protectant and from what I understand was not uncommon on conder tokens (one chat room post I read implied that some of the old red coins seen nowadays were protected by the lacquer). Nowadays it's a big no-no, but it used to be considered helpful for preservation. Anyway, here is recent purchase--a medal I'd been searching for a semi-affordable version of pretty much ever since I first saw it. Only my changing definition of semi-affordable made it possible. Would have loved silver, but found this bronze version. No restrikes that I know of and the edge marks are consistent with an original striking. The seller pictures were poor, but I took a chance and did suspect some kind of surface issue was going on. On arrival the medal is definitely a keeper, but I was rather struck by a couple things. It has a slick/shiny surface look that I always suspected is what an old lacquered coin/medal would look like, having never seen one. Also, the color looks very different depending on the lighting. Both of these photos are accurate depending on lighting angle, as is anything in between. Louis Bottee, 1893 opening of the port in Tunisa. Lovely (IMO) old Art Nouveau female on a hippocamp. (SHINY, hard to get rid of the highlights...) Normally new purchases get an acetone bath...this one I figured I'd better get some advice on first. So, my questions... 1. It is likely to be an old lacquer job, right? 2. Is old lacquer hazardous as it ages? Break down? Irregularities? 3. Should it be removed? 4. Could it be removed? 5. If it should come off, DIY with acetone or send it to NCS (they'll want to slab it, but I like it plastic free). It took around 10 years to get one I could like and afford, so I'd hate to ruin it.... 6. Do I have the history right? Any other interesting tidbits?
That certainly is a beautiful medal. I've been collecting 19th century French medals for about 20 years. I have about 300 in my collection, and not one of them has been lacquered. I don't think NCS requires that it be slabbed, but maybe they have changed their procedures since I last submitted to them. It used to be that you had to check a box if you wanted to submit to NGC after conservation. You can always call and ask. Chris
I've got a bit of a medal collection--though I gravitate more to the Art Deco, but I don't have anything quite like this surface-wise either. My conder not-collection is mostly slabbed and also nothing like this...but who knows if they were before they were entombed. I'll check with NCS too...last time I sent a few I wanted conserved the only ones not slabbed were 'ineligible types', and I don't recall not-slabbing as an option. I don't like the slabs--they're freaking huge and look terrible in the display cabinet and don't fit in my cabinet cabinet. Cracking the slabs is going to be a bear. Definitely need to check on that again.
A Lacquer is only a sealer. The best is when it actually adheres to the agent. In this case a (coin) (project)if it is applied correctly, If it needs removal then it needs a releasing agent. If it doesn't adhere then you have a nicely preserved coin, just the way it was, only with extra toning than before the process. Would only need a Rose thorn to remove it.
I purchased a scarce late cent once (1796 draped bust which had been lacquered by a previous owner. The shine and unnatural appearance of the lacquer bothered me, so I decided to remove it. A risky thing to do since it is a scarce variety of the 1796 cent at R-5. I first tried acetone, but with limited success. The acetone bath did not remove much of the lacquer at all, and it left the surface looking a bit splotchy from the partial removal. I then tried xylene and this was quite effective. Lacquers are normally acrylic or polyester based. Acetone is a semi-polar solvent which means it will not be very effective in removing polymers with a large non-polar character, like lacquers. Xylene is much less polar than acetone, and I assume that is the reason which it was effective removing the lacquer. 'Like dissolves like' so to speak. Note that if the the lacquer is of the the cured type (i.e chemically cross-linked structure), then a solvent will normally not remove that, and it would have to be removed by mechanical means. That was not the case in my case. The use of a solvent like acetone on copper normally leaves the surface looking drab and lifeless presumably because it dries out the surface. In my case, however, the end result was quite acceptable and I much prefer the current look rather than the shiny, unnatural look it had with the lacquer.
I can't tell if your medal is coated with lacquer or not based on the pictures. But you may be to check it yourself with actually doing anything to the coin. On the rev, there is a bit of verdigris on the crescent moon by the left knee, and tiny bit more, along with a speck of red, to the right of the steeple in the upper right quadrant. If you look at these bits of verdigris closely with a loupe, you should be able to tell if they are coated with something or not. If not, under a loupe they should have a slightly fuzzy or rough looking appearance to surface of them. If coated, they should be smooth and glossed over. Do that and it may just answer your question as to if it is coated or not. If it is, then a soak in xylene should take it off. But there is a specific procedure that should be followed if you try that.
The original term for lacquer involved a reddish pigment from a 'lac' insect, which acetone or even sometimes alcohol will remove. Modern acrylic , similar plastics, and even in some cases epoxies, will vary as marked lacquer. The original is usually the preferred 'shellac' from the shell of that insect, and is hard to find and quite expensive, and usually saved for restoration of valuable antiques. If I wanted to remove it, I would try alcohol ( 95% ETOH) or 91% Isopropyl) first, then acetone, then xylene. If xylene is not effective, then it is similar to a very old thread where I tried even DMSO to remove "lacquer" from a nice coin (ed. Unsuccessfully I must add). Good luck. Jim https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lac
Thanks for all the comments! Yes I will! I'm at work this weekend so can't take a look at it more closely like @GDJMSP suggest...but I will when I get home. Interesting as one 'look' does have a distinct reddish tint to it. Although I'm generally happy to swish away with acetone I'm a bit leery of expanding my chemistry set at the possible expense of this particular medal. It really was hard to find and isn't something to experiment with. @Eduard I have noticed a few times my copper based/bronze medals will look a little more drab after acetone...not enough to worry about and thought I was imagining things a couple times. I do like to 'wash off' my new buys--especially after an eBay seller has a photo with his/her grimy mitts all over a medal in the sales photos (who knows what was for lunch that day??!!). Do you prefer something other than acetone for a basic bath? Nothing restorative or that modifies anything, just something like acetone so when I put a medal in the cabinet I'm not having nightmares about KFC sticky fingers.
Just so ya know Stork xylene will not harm the coin, it is as harmless as acetone is. But it will work, as in remove, things that acetone will not. But that doesn't mean it will work on everything, because it won't. As Jim mentioned above, safely removing something from the surface of a coin depends on what that something is. Also, and there is always going to be this risk, no matter what you use, or even if you send the medal into NCS or PCGS to have them try to remove it, success is never guaranteed, not ever. It's always possible that the end result may be worse than what you have now.
I'm no expert on the subject, but I do have a lacquered coin — an uncirculated 1941 Belgian 5 francs that I lacquered myself many years ago. Why? Because like a lot of WW2 European coins, it's zinc, and those zinc coins are almost completely flat black which makes it nearly impossible to see any detail without a strong lamp and a magnifier. They're like a numismatic black hole from which no light escapes. Lacquering mitigates that problem to a degree and makes viewing the coin more enjoyable, so I figured why not? (It's not rare or valuable.) Anyway, I just wanted to say that the look of my lacquered 5 francs is quite a bit different from the look of your medal. Not sure if this makes sense, but on my coin you kind of get a sense that there's a physical layer of something on top of the metal. I'm not getting that from your pics. Pics can be deceiving, but to my eye, your medal looks like it simply has a bit of a polished (burnished?) finish. And speaking of polished, I seem to recall seeing other European medals of that era with a similar look. At least, I assumed that's what it was, and I chalked it up to being the fashion of the day among medal makers. But again, what I know about medals AND lacquered coins wouldn't fill a thimble. If I'm wrong and there is a coating of lacquer (or something) on your medal, I'd suggest xylene rather than acetone. I've occassionally has unpleasant results with acetone on bronze, and besides, I think xylene is a far better tool for the job.
Some very helpful comments and at this point my real takeaway is I'm not going to touch it myself. It's been fine for however many umpteen years it's been sitting like this and it'll wait until I take my next trip to Baltimore (sadly probably next Spring). There are plenty of medal folks I can show it to and get real life opinions.
Sounds like a good solution. Not having the actual coin/medal makes it exceedingly hard to determine coatings.
Works for me, but do as I suggested in my first post - look at it. Just doing that may answer your question.
I'll check that out once I'm sufficiently recovered from work . If nothing else I have a box waiting for me at the post office and I might stumble down to the basement to take some photos/eyeball the newps, and will take a closer look at this medal too. Kind of interesting how I forget things...I stumbled on this picture of a medal I own and had completely forgotten about until going through my photo host pictures. Looks like there is a remnant of a ?lacquer. It's an iron medal and in rough shape (and IIRC was hard to take a photo of...I'll have to try again) but was probably the sort that would benefit from protective coating.
