Question for the Dippers

I'm scared to ask any cleaning related questions. I know how polarizing the issue is. So this question is specifically for those who have dipped coins in an E-Z-est type acid/thiourea solution. If you are against cleaning in any way, shape, or form you don't have to read and get yourself all irate. I totally respect your opinion.

I am currently doing all the experiments--trying to learn the boundaries of dipping successfully. I feel a bit like the alchemist of old...I'm suddenly a middle aged chemist trying to turn lead into gold

Anyway my question I guess is a bit more philosophical than practical. My understanding is that you can get away with dipping as long as there is luster left when you are done. This is market acceptable. The results of this can be graded straight. No "cleaned" bodybag, etc.

I could be mistaken, but it seems to me that this consensus does not apply to copper. My question is: Would it be ok to dip copper if luster remained afterward? For the moment lets just put aside the question of color. Yes, I know whacky stuff can happen with the color when dipping copper. Lets say hypothetically that color remained the same. In that scenario you would have the exact same outcome as silver. I don't know if I am getting across exactly what I am trying to get across. There seems to be a stigma attached to dipping copper that doesn't exist for silver. It seems to me they are exactly the same procedure except that copper has color issues.

If it were not for the color issue would it be ok? Would it be as acceptable as dipping silver? That's my question

Thanks in advance.

Hope you have some interesting thoughts and/or useful, enlightening pieces of information.

Jason

 

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mrjason71, posted: I'm scared to ask any cleaning related questions. I know how polarizing the issue is. So this question is specifically for those who have dipped coins in an E-Z-est type acid/thiourea solution. If you are against cleaning in any way, shape, or form you don't have to read and get yourself all irate. I totally respect your opinion.

This is priceless! It's too bad you even need to write that as IMO, anyone who is against PROPER DIPPING (conservation) is ignorant!

Anyway my question I guess is a bit more philosophical than practical. My understanding is that you can get away with dipping as long as there is luster left when you are done. This is market acceptable. The results of this can be graded straight. No "cleaned" bodybag, etc.

NO, luster has nothing to do with it. You can get away with dipping as long as no one can tell for sure that the coin was dipped. Additionally, just because a 150 year old coin is blast white DOES NOT MEAN IT WAS DIPPED IN THE PAST!

I could be mistaken, but it seems to me that this consensus does not apply to copper. My question is: Would it be ok to dip copper if luster remained afterward? For the moment lets just put aside the question of color. Yes, I know whacky stuff can happen with the color when dipping copper. Lets say hypothetically that color remained the same. In that scenario you would have the exact same outcome as silver. I don't know if I am getting across exactly what I am trying to get across. There seems to be a stigma attached to dipping copper that doesn't exist for silver. It seems to me they are exactly the same procedure except that copper has color issues.

...Those "color issues" you mention are very important. Until you learn what you are doing don't touch copper.

PS When you discover how to dip copper in the chemical you mention and have it stay the same color, you can be a millionaire.

 

The only problem with dipping copper is that thiourea turns it orange. Then again, that's a pretty big problem.

Learning to dip is elementary. It's not difficult. Learning what to dip seems beyond the ken of most who try it.

 

The population reports don't really support this claim. PCGS has a population of 3 for Cents/Half Cents before 1800. For Draped Bust Cents its 3, Draped Half cents its 14. 453 for the rest of the half cents and 784 for the rest of the large cents.

The significant majority for red cents is from the Lincolns. Even with Indian head cents red is the least common color designation. In total PCGS has graded a little under half a million copper cents/half cents red and about 25% of those are from 1959 or later. NGC numbers are likely similar and you very likely won't get over a million without counting moderns. There is a substantial drop off in the red designation when you go back past Lincolns and another huge drop off when you go back further than Indians.

There certainly may be people that have figured out how to dip copper and I believe someone probably has figured out how to be successful some of the time with it, but the pop reports aren't reading like its an easy thing to do or widespread.

 

Doug wrote: I don't think you can say that luster has nothing to do it because there are times when it does. For example, say you have a coin that has no wear on it, and almost always if the coin has no wear on it then the coin has to have luster. And there are really only two occasions when a coin will not have any wear, and not have any luster. 1 - when the toning has progressed to the point that all the luster has been destroyed. And 2 - when a coin has been over-dipped and the dip has destroyed the luster. Other than those scenarios, if a coin has no wear then it is going to have luster.
So it is in that regard that luster does have something to do with it. A fine point perhaps but one that matters.

I agree, and your post/comments are more to the point. However, many coins that are dipped have either no original mint luster, just a little, a lot, or all of it so in my answer the amount of original mint luster on a coin was not considered to be a factor in dipping. Now, just to be safe/exact/correct, IMO, worn coins with no original mint luster remaining should rarely be dipped.

I've used original mint in my post as the reflection of light from the surface of a metal coin is called luster and even a polished coin with no original mint luster has "luster." It just does not look like original mint luster.

 

Thank you guys for replying. Absolutely the sort of discussion I would like to have. I have delved deep into the archives here and elsewhere looking for even the most minute piece of advice. I believe others are indeed doing this successfully--and not in any kind of unethical way I might add--unless dipping silver is unethical. I think it is generally agreed that even conservation companies do this so...

There's 3 ways I can think of accomplishing the goal: 1) Dip and get the right color out of the bowl. 2) Some other process than dipping, or 3) Dipping and AT'ing the result to market acceptability. Really hoping to figure out 1 and/or 2. Hopefully option 3 isn't the only one that is possible. I guess that would be better than nothing What do you guys think? If it is being dipped, is it then being AT'd to market acceptability?

Thanks for taking the time to read and give such thoughtful answers. I know this topic has been beaten to death, but it really is my favorite

 

If you've dipped a coin to the point of losing luster you've either gone waaay too far or it was dipped to the very edge of capacity already and you don't know it. More likely than not is a details will result if the dip leaves a cloudy haze from going a bit too far or the dip can't remove everything without going too far leaving traces that the coin has been dipped.

And to the OP, there is a big difference between cleaning and conservation. Although the line separating the two can be paper thin.

 

True because of the Lincolns, but that could also be changed overnight easily and is really just a result of submission bias. Obviously there are more red coins left from the last 50 years than before, most just aren't worth submitting.

Into the million yes, not millions though unless the NCG population is over double the PCGS and that includes a significant portion of moderns.

Not every single one turns quickly or at all, just like some coins will tone quickly and others seem to never want to even when they came right from the mint and you know they haven't been dipped.

I don't find it inconceivable that a minuscule percentage of a mintage could have ended up in an environment that kept it red. Pretty much every climate you can think of exists in the country and some are much more favorable than others. We're really talking about a fraction of one percent of the mintages for the older coins. Were a few dipped successfully probably, but that isn't the only possible way they could still be red.

 

I don't know about copper, but from my collection of WWI/WWII era iron and zinc coins, the ones I have that survived in high grades did so stored in machine oil/mineral oil and wrapped in cloth or the like. Some are over 100 years old and look as struck, with no oxidation, and have not been dipped. I believe encasement in oil would count as an airtight storage method (though it needs to be cared for), and one that was historically available.

 

There's a whole lot of truth concentrated in this post.

For the record, shellac or some similar coating will keep copper from coloring, but that's not the point because it isn't in evidence on the exceptions we're discussing. Every once in a great while, perhaps, the Mint planchet pre-treatment somehow "sticking" more strongly - or an accident of surface composition - or a lucky continuous happenstance of location and storage technique - could result in a copper retaining its' original color. But not as often as the quantity of older Reds in the market indicates. Thiourea does not do well with copper, but something has to.

We're surrounded by proof which is apparent with the application of logical reasoning.

 

Now take one of those old "red" coins and compare it to a new freshly minted copper coin. That old red is not the same as a new red the color HAS darkened and mellowed. Toning has occurred. But the color is even all over. When the color isn't even and you have lighter and darker areas then it becomes "red and brown".

 

Fascinating discussion which might interest @BadThad I do admit to a terrible compulsion to cle... conserve coins. Copper is very problematic. One approach I have tried is dipping or soaking in oxalic acid. Despite the "acid" designation, the chemical is more of a reducing agent than it is an acid. The idea is to reduce the copper oxide on the surface back to copper while the oxalic acid is oxidized to carbon dioxide. Give it a try if you have any oxalic acid about.

 

Whoa I didn't realize this thread was still going on. I thought Id get an email alert if something new came through. Ironically I did a search on a term and this popped up You know that ugly pink color that people hate to see and use as a denigrating description of "cleaned" coins? Well that is the color of a freshly minted copper coin in my estimation--at least those Ive been able to witness newly minted each year. Copper coins might have been a different color when newly minted 50, 100 years ago--I wouldn't know since I was not alive. I assume they were pink as well (unless the switch to zinc had something to do with this). You would think people would like that pink color. They do turn red awfully quick. I have a ton of post 1980 red pennies (and lots of 1935-1980s) that I have personally taken immediately out of circulation. They were pink. They are now red. To GDJMSP's point: I guess copper tones so quickly that people cannot believe that a copper coin is still newly minted pink. This is a little off the point but I have a bunch of 1935-1959 cents that are a beautiful orange. Is that what comes after the red? And then into brown? Pink, red, orange, then brown? Or did some other storage scenario create the orange and these were never "red"?

 

Interesting thread.

 

Orange is bad.
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