Silver Dimes

i use nail polish remover at max. strength (98%). No other ingredients, just 1 pint of acetone at $2.10

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

the other 2% is oxidation of acetone and dust accumulation

 

Thanks. I saw your comment on my profile. In truth, I like to hope I'm not as bad as I describe myself, and I'm just having some phun. But, sometimes when I tick off one of my sister in laws, she excels at telling me how much improvement it would be if I was just old, fat, bald, gray, ugly, etc. But at least I'm closer to sane, and that's a real problem for her.

Thanks again for your thoughts.

 

I love your CT description! They check some of my boxes as well.

 

Thank you. I really would like to take you up on that kind offer. It's important to me that you know I am grateful and work very hard to never abuse such courtesies. Yours seems to be the winning opinion, and mine must seem like the whining opinion. However, experienced people selflessly sharing that information is why I'm here and there is tremendous altruism on this site. That's something else I try not to abuse, but my brane went weird on me a few years ago and this specific learning curve has proven inexplicably more difficult for me. So I sometimes ask the same questions, but from a different perspective because I'm still missing some minor nuance for you guys, but it's a puzzle I haven't grasped well. I can't tell you how understanding, gracious, considerate, and patient every single response I've received has been. Even negative concerns have been offered with concern, not criticism.

I did an experiment last night that may be interesting to someone trying to help me. I took some coins I hope that were probably less than face value and just to see what would happen, I tried a few severiously industrial grade metal and/or copper cleaner on them. The results may not surprise anyone besides me, but here's what happened.

Three dimes with similar wear, age, and overall appearance. One was only washed off with water, and I let it air dry. No change whatsoever. Second dime I put in a glass tube and gave it an hour long bath. I took it out and dried it with a microfiber cloth. It was minimally cleaner after the bath so I took about ten minutes carefully rubbing it down with a cotton cloth soaked in acetone (microfiber cloth repelled the acetone). I was gentle as I could be, "scrubbed" it in every direction as well as circular and counter circular. I got it significantly cleaner, but there were marks my inexperience can't decide if they were there before. They were consistent with what I would expect to find on a circulated coin, but now I had a clean circulated coin. This is exactly when I realized I should have taken pictures. The luster partially returned and I was much more satisfied with its eye appeal. The third dime I used a metallic polish/cleaner/restorer product. I took a LOT of time. I let it sit in the cleaner for ten minutes then sat it upside down on another new uncontaminated dab of cleaner. This stuph is not very viscous so the dime didn't sink, it just sat on top. Ten more minutes, using a latex glove to hold it, I used a cotton glove to slowly and deliberately "squished" the cleaner into to edge rim and let it sit five more minutes. Now I'm 25 minutes into it and using two virgin, thin cloth gloves I removed the cleaner from all sides. Without scrubbing, not all of it would come off. Then I took another pair of thin cotton gloves (I'm accident prone so long ago my wife decreed that I will have lots of gloves, new and used, laying around the house) and to shorten the story took somewhere between 25 to 30 minutes VERY gently removing what residue was left and attending to blemishes and boogers, using the minimum effort necessary and never forcing anything. Only once did I need a disproportionate amount of time on a specific spot. The end result was total restoration of luster and no new visible scratches or goobers. For me, I was honestly astonished at the result. I'm late for an errand, and she's already reminded me twice, but when I get back I want to look at it with the microscope. I did the same thing with cents and was even more shocked with the luster, but cents show every tiny blemish much worse than dimes. I assume part of that is copper itself and another consideration is that they have more bare space. My purpose was to see what happens if I just took a coin and cleaned it vs. paying close attention to detail without rushing through it. I gotta go before I get a whupping, but when I get back this evening I want to look at these with a microscope. Eye appeal on both were great and I need to see if I got anywhere close to "restore" level for the dime without introducing new damage.

She's right here over my shoulder. See ya, and thanks.

 

Nothing wrong with playing around with face value coins. Great way to learn the look of coins that have been cleaned/messed with.

 

Grab a 10x lens and look at the one you polished with the microfiber cloth for the scratches... the gunk being moved around will have tiny bits of abrasives...

 

The information about cleaning coins is really good to know.

 

What metal/copper cleaner did you use? Post photos of finished coins please.
Normally, I have only used distilled water or acetone to "clean" coins, but recently acquired a bunch of no date Buffalo Nickels and experimented on them. While the Nik-A-Lean did clean the coin, it is obvious it removed the top layer of the surface, so "damaged" the coin.

 

I'm sure you're right. I've been down a bit today, but I plan to do just what you recommended as soon as I bounce back up again. Thank you.

 

I'll get that for you, but it will be tomorrow. Haven't felt well today, but after a good nigh of rest I'd very much appreciate your appraisal. Thanks.

 

Buck up there @Sam Stone there's always tomorrow...

 

Mr. Kentucky, you've always been a genuine inspiration and I want to say thank you. This one note was the perfect words at the perfect time. Both of our vehicles chose yesterday to break down and as terrible as I am at learning numismatics, I'm exponentially worse at being a mechanic. Since our cars are old, repair quotes have been more than the value of the cars and my disability check covers nada. So, dumbhead me goes out to try and at least get one of them working and wound up refusing to go to ER because I obviously need stitches we can't afford. I think coin collecting is much more fun and even though it's supposedly safe, I'll find a way to get hurt.

I didn't mean to whine. I do want you and the other guys who always seem to answer when I ask ridiculously simple questions, without judging me, to know how encouraging and uplifting you have been. You are all gifts from God.

Partial whine alert: if anyone knows a mechanic in the Ft. Worth area that poor people can afford, I'd love to hear about it.

Thanks again Mr. Kentucky. Pat yourself on the back for me and give yourself a raise.

 

Sorry I missed getting you pics yesterday. Car troubles plus I got myself a lovely new scar for being a worse mechanic than I am a numismatist. Here are the things I used to clean the coins as I described earlier. The Brasso only did an OK job, and the one I took extra time with and got the best results with the least abrasions is the Wright's Metal Polish. There is a third one, some silver polish paste, that was so horrible it's not worth wasting anyone's time on. Because of my disability and yesterday's injuries I'm on wife - decreed bed rest today so I couldn't get the lighting I needed to take better pictures of the coins upstairs. So, I had to take a bunch more than usual pics with the lighting I do have to show what you wanted to see. Is it acceptable to post 2-3,000 pics at the same time? If I upload them as thumbnails, will that make a difference? I took different angles, zoomed photos, alternate lighting angles, and they added up.

Hope this at least answers some of your questions.

 

Sorry. I didn't get this picture.

 

Sorry for your car troubles and injury. Listen to your wife and take it easy. LOL
I had asked for photos of the coins, not the cleaner and posting only a few of your best photos, in FULL IMAGE are advisable.

 

Thank you for the good wishes. I explained myself poorly about the pics. Since I couldn't get the lighting upstairs the photos I took are sub par so I took a lot of them hoping I could post more than usual and hopefully one or two would be something that showed what you was looking for. I just discovered some of them disappeared, but I think I know where they went. I'm going to see about compressing them while retaining resolution. If I can get that done I'll post whichever ones may help. The example I'm including cropped poorly, but I was wanting to show what I can only describe as "texture." This cent was done with Wright's metal polish and it came out much better than anything I did with the Brasso. There was already some blemishes on the coin, but I am personally OK with the quality. I took my time with this one and I only wish I could capture the brilliance of tone. I've never held a coin in my hands that was this bright in color. I would describe the luster of this picture as maybe a 5, but to the naked eye it's closer to 15 (out of 10). I'll try to get better stuph if my wife ever let's me out of prison.

 

He isn't going to do harm to ANY coin by cleaning it properly . . . "cleaning it properly" being the operative phrase.

Neither water nor acetone will affect Sam's silver dimes. It will only affect contaminants, if any, on the surface of his coins. I don't know why it's so hard for some collectors to wrap their heads around this concept. It's middle school science.

@Sam Stone . . . no microfiber cloth. Not even to pat dry. Let evaporation do that.

 

For experimental purposes, using expendable coins, I did apply pressure but used some magnification and was as careful and patient as I'm capable of being. I wanted to see what damage would actually happen if I used my own interpretation of common sense, but uneducated, untrained restoration. My biggest mistake wasn't accomplishing what I personally consider acceptable results, it was spending so much time on planning, preparation, and performance I forgot to take "before" pictures.

What an idiot. I've been ill a few days and as soon as possible I'll get the results posted with pics. Thank you for the encouragement.