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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;beef1020, post: 1218510, member: 24544&quot;]I will throw the a somewhat contrarian position out there.&nbsp; There is a bit of a word game going on here but whatever, here it goes.</p><p><br /></p><p>Do not &#039;clean&#039; coins.&nbsp; This means do not do anything which will affect the surface/patina of a coin.&nbsp; For copper in particular, this means do not try to make them shiny if they are dull.&nbsp; I would not personally use an acid as it may react with the copper and change the surface of the coin.</p><p><br /></p><p>DO conserve coins.&nbsp; This means cleaning off surface dirt,grime,wax, verdigris.&nbsp; I use xylol for this, which is a solvent and a soft brush to clean off dirt.&nbsp; This does not affect the surface of the coin in any way, but it does remove dirt which if not removed can lead to damage.&nbsp; I also use a product called verdi-care after I clean the coin with xylol.&nbsp; One caveat I would add here is I generally do not do this with coins in AU or better.&nbsp; I do not believe it will affect luster, but it might.&nbsp; Additionally, AU coins should not have much dirt to remove.</p><p><br /></p><p>I am not a chemist, but there are a couple out there in the coin community who are, and this is what was suggested to me.&nbsp; You can search for verdi-care or verdi-gone and find multiple posts from the chemist who created it. There is a huge negative reaction when people hear clean a coin which is often this is justified as people use acids to try to make old pennies shinny and new, don&#039;t do this.&nbsp; On the other hand, it is perfectly OK to clean dirt and other corrosive foreign objects off of your coins.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>The function goal is to make the surface of the coin as stable as possible, so don&#039;t try to change the surface patina, but if there are already things on the surface which will cause damage then I remove them.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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