Still playing with the preservation idea of contaminated mint sets. Specifically the late 70's early 80's sets that were contained in some type of cellophane sleeves. This was my most dramatic approach and result so far... (I'm sure this method will be frowned upon). Can you guess what I did?
Looks like some bug not all off the luster has been removed. I agree, I like them before. What makes you think the set was contaminated?
They looked like nice natural coins to begin with, now it looks as though the surface has actually been stripped, especially the cent. I will second Collecting Nut, what makes you say they were contaminated? If they were, something like acetone would most likely remove the contaminant without hurting the coins.
Stripped yes but they sure are minty looking now. These sets suffer contamination problems from the mint. Acetone does very little to the damage. It may stop it but I took it a step further. Just to see.
I'm not the only one. And compared to mint sets from earlier years there is undeniably a problem with the plastic sleeve sets. I am not advocating breaking up the sets to preserve or somehow recover them from the "toning"? , but it has been mentioned that this type of toning is caused by contamination. Something like that, to my knowledge.
This "toning" was discussed in this thread if your interested. https://www.cointalk.com/threads/79-sba-san-francisco.389352/ Maybe I misinterpreted but I am on record as leaving my sets alone. What I did to this set is harmful and not recommended by any means. I was just really surprised at how effectively the HCl brightened them and therefore must have removed any contamination, along with some metal I assume.
Wow, I was thinking more of 5-10% Gotta be careful with HCl on base metals like copper and nickel, it'll eat the surface pretty quick at 35%. It's safe for Noble metals like silver and gold tho.
You own them. You have every right to do whatever you'd like to them. That's the exact same logic as everyone else is expressing here. They seem to collectively like the before treatment pix. As do I. I'm not a fan whatsoever of blast white. Some people like that look. I'm also not big into heavy toning, but I am into natural toning. Your HCL treatment stripped that away. Now you can enjoy your coins the way you like them.
If for some reason you ever want dissolve Noble metals mix the HCl with nitric acid. I tried the whole "reclaim gold" thing from old PCs. It costs almost as much for supplies as for the amount you reclaim, lol.
