Washing Silver Generic Rounds

Since you are going to clean some rounds, why not do this so we can put the MYTH about acetone and stains on silver to rest - FINALLY. If you have any kind of camera, take a before photo of a small section of the coin with the stain and unstained surface (so we can see it magnified up close). Then do your acetone soak. If you cannot do it, I'll post a test next week. Have fun!

Oh, after the dip - which I'll bet also has no effect if the rounds have the white stains we all call "milk spots", I'll suggest you try baking soda and distilled water. Don't worry about the concentration. I just dump some soda into a beaker of water! Finally, make sure you thoroughly rinse the soda solution off the coin. After that some use an alcohol dip to speed the drying.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

You don't. That is the best. However it is easy. Lay each coin flat, one on top of each other making a stack. Then carefully slide the tube over and down the stack. Then tip the tube full of coins upright. Don't touch the end coin! I'll let you figure that one out BTW, The opposite of this is how to remove the coins from the tube.

 

Sounds good Insider. I will do my best with an IPhone as far as pics go. I'm stepping into Walmart to get all the stuff I need. So far I have eZest, a gallon of distilled water. I am getting acetone, glass containers, Nitril Gloves, microfiber towel, baking soda, soap. Let me know if I need anything else.

 

Hair dryer. Don't dry the coins with a towel.

Remember, we do not need a photo of the entire coin, just enough to see a large spot and some natural surface around it.

Good luck.

 

Ok, you can see the fingerprints below the ear and behind the hair. On the forehead is a milk spot. I am going to give this an acetone bath overnight (8-9 hours).

 

The Two generics have prints all over them. Most likely acetone won't do much. We'll see. Off into the acetone they go! (Tomorrow will be E Zest day).

 

The prints will probably come off. If the acetone does not work I'll PM you with another chemical that should.

The white spots on the Canadian coin WILL NOT COME OFF with anything I have tried over the years. I also know that (as of my last visit), NCS has not found a cure for them. I'm still looking as the "fix" should make me rich...LOL.

 

To bad about the milk spots. The Maple is such a beautiful coin.

 

Great Success on the Maple. The two fingerprinted areas are gone. Milk spot still there but that was expected. So acetone bath for nine hours worked. Will not use e Zest on it.

 

On the rounds the fingerprints are gone after 9 hour acetone bath. The surfaces are still fuzzy and dull though.

 

So, I got the fingerprints off with a simple acetone bath and that is a great relief. The question now is do I use the e Zest to get the fuzzy rounds sparkly?

 

Good work! The coins already look shiny so I would leave them but a quick dip of one of them to see if you like it better will not hurt.

It may be just the lighting but it looks like a dry acetone residue stain on the Queen's breast.

 

That's the lighting, sorry the pics aren't that great. But yeah, I will dip one for 2-3 seconds, put in baking soda, running water, distilled water and pat dry. We'll see how that goes. If anything cool happens I will post pics.

 

Hey, good work @Bman33

 

So I just put the remaining 11 problem rounds in a big glass tray for a 9hour bath. We'll see how it goes. I am wondering if I should also do a bath with the reverse up. Might help. Can you hurt the silver with too long of an acetone bath? They would be in it for 18 hours total.

 

I've never heard of acetone hurting silver; HOWEVER, I never heard of soaking a coin in acetone until I joined CT several months ago UNLESS it was encased in Plastic.

That being said, it looks like you had good luck with a 9 hour soak. The only thing I can think of that may go wrong is if one of a large group of coins that are being soaked together has a soluble contamination that may "coat" the other coins requiring more conservation. Let us know what happens.

 

Question, I have decided to put my silver in long term storage. I have 40 more 1oz rounds that will need some E Zest. Would it be better to dip them before I put them into Long Term or after when I want to sell?

 

Dip before (if at all) and make sure they are THOROUGHLY rinsed before storing.