Proper acetone procedure

Gives you an idea of the highly subjective nature of what's cleaned and what isn't. If you're a good coin doctor, it gets the stamp of approval I guess.

 

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Doctoring coins rules!

 

If you're good at it, yes apparently so. It's the bad ones that get all the attention though.

 

If acetone doesn't damage a coin, and water does, why bother rinsing the acetone off after? Sounds like a marketing gimmick for distilled water. Distilled water doesn't have a neutral ph by the way.

 

Then there's the whole 'exposed to air' argument. Air isn't pure so, I'd have to guess that the ones exposed to air are to be thrown away too.

 

I think we just shouldn't clean coins at all. The ones from shipwrecks should be slabbed in situ, just need a big slab to fit a clump of 100 coins. Or clean coins and not have any kind of harshly cleaned grade. Pick a side, reality is B&W not grey.

 

Polishing your brass bed to make it shiny is acceptable, but do the same thing to a coin and it's not? Come on! Restoring the mona lisa is acceptable, but re stamping a coin that's in G4 cond to make it looks MS isn't? Get real everyone!

 

Keep in mind even the TPGS admit that grading and authorizing coins is not a science. That's why they use, for the most part, two people to render and opinion and then add a third to have the final say.

Those people who crack out coins and resubmit them would stop if they didn't get, on occasion, a higher grade. I know Dealers who have cracked out the same coin 5 or 6 times when the difference in grade means big money. At one time the TPGS even experimented with computer grading to eliminate the human factor, but that didn't work either.

I have a set of silver proof Kennedy dollars in the PCGS Registry program. The coins are 1964 and then 1992 to date. The coins I have from 1992 on are all graded PR70 DCAM, it's the 1964 that's the killer. The best I've been able to get certified is a PR69Cam, so I'm tied for second place. The very few PR69DCAMs that I have found for sale are in the $4,000 range which puts them out of my range, so I continue to try and cherry pick dealers stock and hope for the best. I have several PR69CAM, but just can't seem to get the TPGS to give any that I've sent in PR69DCAM. And so the quest continues...

My latest try.

 

Agreed. Fact is though is that MOST collectible coins at one time or another have been cleaned. The older and rarer that it is even increases the likelihood that it has in fact been cleaned. That's why I advocate all coins labeled cleaned (either badly or superbly). Also, it mistakenly suggests to the holder of said coin that it is now worthless if anyone suggests that coin A or coin B could have been cleaned at some time. It changes hands though a few time and suddenly, boom! It's now 'of high numismatic value' once again. The whole cleaning/conservation thing is a joke.

 

Nice looking submission!

 

I agree with that statement, but you said to rinse it with "hard water" in your previous post. That is what I objected to.

FWIW, BadThad says rinsing a coin with water after either acetone or xylene "re-hydrates" the coin to enable further degradation.

 

I have a coin that is either AU 58 Or MS 62-64, and the difference between AU 58 and MS 63 is $34,000. I do not look forward to sending it in where I assume it will be auto AU 58'd Them knowing full well it will be resubmitted until it gets the "proper grade". I also don't look forward to selling it after, and having a bunch of dealers trying to tell me the TPG made a "mistake" and it's been cleaned.

 

Actually, neither damage coins. However, impure acetone will damage coins just as impure water will.

 

I love finding the PL kennedys. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

 

I don't have or use distilled water, but I think you should leave a coin in a sealed bottle of distilled water for a month and see what happens. I think it'll change your opinion of how unreactive it is.

 

Let's see. The Atocha coins sat in salt water for almost 400 years and they survived.

 

Not much difference between xylene and toluene on that count, either.

 

It's only non-neutral if it's contaminated. Don't leave it sitting uncapped for weeks.

 

Distilled water in a plastic container can also, over time, become off pH 7.0 , usually very slightly acidic. Also that sold or produced for general purposes, may have some ion contamination due to steam distillation cleaning processes.

 

You don't "rinse the acetone off." Acetone - if you're employing it - should be the last liquid which ever touches the coin. If the acetone is leaving something behind, you've used it insufficiently.