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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Sam Stone, post: 4367151, member: 110020&quot;]Thank you. I really would like to take you up on that kind offer. It&#039;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&#039;m here and there is tremendous altruism on this site. That&#039;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&#039;m still missing some minor nuance for you guys, but it&#039;s a puzzle I haven&#039;t grasped well. I can&#039;t tell you how understanding, gracious, considerate, and patient every single response I&#039;ve received has been. Even negative concerns have been offered with concern, not criticism. </p><p><br /></p><p>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&#039;s what happened.</p><p><br /></p><p>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, &quot;scrubbed&quot; it in every direction as well as circular and counter circular. I got it significantly cleaner, but there were marks my inexperience can&#039;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&#039;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 &quot;squished&quot; the cleaner into to edge rim and let it sit five more minutes. Now I&#039;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&#039;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&#039;m late for an errand, and she&#039;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 &quot;restore&quot; level for the dime without introducing new damage. </p><p><br /></p><p>She&#039;s right here over my shoulder. See ya, and thanks.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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