Results- Vacuum Sealing Coins- 1 Month Later

Thanks for the results. I unfortunatly learned the hard way not to do this. Not only does it dull them, but the seal a meal bags with the horizontal lines, will leave marks on the coins. And will also fog them up. Unfortunatly I put my proof silver quarters in one, and you can guess how I felt when I took them out.

Phoenix

collect4fun, Bigfella... the reason I tested this was because another member questioned about a vacuum sealed bags to preserves their coins. I was not sure if this method was safe for long term storage.
I myself use the vacuum seal method for mailing purposes only. So it got me thinking and I decided to test it since I have this vacuum sealer device.


graceoutcast....sorry to disappoint you but, no. Wasn't planing to continue.

Jim1953...The bags are safe for foods. As I said previously, this was only a test out of my own curiosity when the question was brought up on it's safety for coins.

mila_

More unscientific experiments I presume. To many items left out of these tests. For example what was the ambient temperature inside when sealed and outside during the test? Was it a complete vacuum? Was there any possibility that air filled with moiture and carbon dioxide where on the coins itself when sealed? Exactly what type of plastic was used and how old was the plastic?
The experiment appears to show that something was sealed in with the coins.
I have been putting my Whitman Classic Albums in freezer type bags with as much air squeezed out as possible. I've been doing this for more years than most people have been collecting coins and no adverse reactions of any kind yet. I keep my house dehumidified and my basement even more so. I do not move coins from one invironment to another oftem enough to accumulate foreign substances. Again, none of my coins look any different than they did the day I first got them. Some have been with me for well over 60 years now.
Of course for very long term conditions that may change. For example in another few hundred years my coins may start to fade and if they do I'll let you know.

I think there must have been some moisture or something sealed into the bags as others have stated. I have tried this before also. I had some sealed up to a year with no ill effects to the coins. It got to the point it wasn't worth the hassle of sealing them up. One thing I did notice that a few of them had slowly lost the seal after a few months. Hard to get a good seal.

Mila cent

How about some pictures of the coins once removed from the bag ?

even mint cello makes the coins look hazy,, but when they are removed the coins are fine and the haze is in the cello.

its possible that the plastic having been stretched over the coins is what has hazed not the coins.

If I remember right the vacum bags are not exactly clear anyway!!

Metalman

That's funny though, because I think I remember in the "infomercial" they said that vacuum sealing coins, comics, and other collectables is an ideal way to store and preserve them.

In reality not all plastics leak anything. Many are extreamly stable until high temperatures are attained. I've put coins inside plastic to make letter openers, pen holders, paper weights, etc for many years and they look the same as the day they were put there. Obvilusly if it was plastic that effected coins, all of mine would have turned into a mess by now. The primary plastics that leak chemicals are the one where a substance is added to make it more flexible or to make pretty colors. And just as radioactive materials have a half life, so does any chemically treated substance where there is some decay by the disipation of that substance. However, eventually when it is all gone there just AIN'T no more. Such is the story of PVC which has become almost an expression when someone dosen't know what caused something.