After seeing so many threads here about acetone I decided to try it. I've tried it on about 20 different coins, with all different kinds of problems. I understand that acetone is supposed to work on organic things, but since I don't know exactly what is on these coins, I just picked ones that I thought had a decent chance of being organic. But I haven't seen any noticeable results on any of them. So I'm not really sure what's so great about acetone and what it's supposed to accomplish. I would think at least some of these coins would have something organic on them, but they look the same as ever. I left some in for about a day, and some for about three days. So is there a secret I'm missing, or how do I know what kind of coins this works on?
I only use Acetone, personally, for silver/proof coins that have PVC residue (green slime). If a coin is a clean, uncirculated, coin without any toning, it can be dipped into the Acetone to remove the PVC from its surface. If the coin is toned, or circulated and has a nice patina on it, the Acetone will clean it off and it won't look as nice so using the cotton swab method would be safer to implement. Do so at your own risk, obviously.
I've used lots of Acetone on silver coins, some of them 300+ years old and I have never see any toning removed by soaking them.
I have not - I'm willing to give it a try - I have some copper rounds that have seen better days! Thanks!
