What Should I Do?

I wouldn't bother unless you think they have already been affected by the plasticizer oils gassing out onto them, in direct contact with the PVC.

They should ALL be rehoused in a non PVC environment.

My experience is that the oils will affect the coins in PVC flips, but it has been only obviously noticeable over a period of years. Red Unc. bronze coins are the ones that are the most sensitive, so examine those most closely.

If you think some have been affected, put those in acetone, in a screw top sealed jar to save the acetone and to avoid fumimg yourself, and well away from a possible ignition source.

$5 for a 1oz bottle when acetone is $5/qt and leaves nothing behind to *be* detected? Heck, we're trying to decide whether the cost of acetone is justifiable here, not asking him to take a Q-tip to hundreds of coins one at a time.

Anyway, the primary worry here is PVC plasticizers, which that product does nothing for so all he'd be doing is spending extra money. Don't forgt, "green" is a later stage in the process. By the time something shows green, it's already been working for a while.

CRHer, this is a lot of work any way you look at it. I would be considering something allowing you to do the initial soak for a number of coins at a time. Heck, you're looking at close to 5 gallons of acetone to do it the way we normally recommend. Can you be sure the flips contain PVC plasticizers? That's not the only way to come up with a "soft" flip. Maybe we can get you out of the work.

I'm Curious when you "dump" the acetone after doing a dip, where are you all dumping it?

A great article about preserving your coins:


http://www.usgoldexpert.com/article...-are-ruined/

"Silica gel also can be beneficial, she reports. If
you've purchased a new camera or radio lately, you've
probably noticed a small packet of silica gel in the box.
Silica gel and silica are "very handy for maintaining a dry
environment," Maltby says. Basically, they serve as sponges,
drawing all the moisture out of the air.

Sue Maltby also recommends dipping your coins in a
neutral solution, such as alcohol, before storing them. For
his part, Bern Nagengast advises that you treat them with an
evaporative freon solution such as trichlorotrifluoroethane.
This protects the surfaces of your coins from environmental
damage, yet is harmless itself to the coins.

[Note: Since this article was first published, new production
of trichlorotrifluoroethane, a highly evaporative freon, was
banned because of its destructive effect on the earth's protective
ozone layer. And a superb new product designed to maintain and
protect coins, Intercept Shield, was introduced by John Albanese.]

http://www.interceptshield.com/


regarding interceptshield:

"PLEASE NOTE:
We are no longer accepting orders from our website!"

--Maybe someone on here could get some from their shop & sell them to the CC members?

I just dump it onto the concrete driveway. It evaporates away in about a minute. Sometime when the pyro in me is acting up I light it after I dump it on the concrete and burn it off. (I wouldn't do that on asphalt though. The solvent action of the acetone might liberate enough hydrocarbons from the asphalt that you might be able to get it burning as well.)

If you want to make up your own packaging you can get silica gel a lot cheaper. For example the above has a 1 lb for $17 or 2 lb for $28 (plus $13.80 shipping). Here you can get five pounds of bulk indicating silica gel for $17 (plus $21 shipping).

https://www.deltaadsorbents.com/sil...svaQoduw0AFA

The shipping is higher for the 5 pounds but the 2 pound works out to $21 a pound and the five pound works out to $7.60 a pound.

Yes, you should.

The stuff that was on the coin does not magically disappear. It is now dissolved into the acetone. As that acetone evaporates, the concentration of that gunk increases and at some point starts to redeposit on whatever remains, whether it is the bottom of the container or a coin.

Definite good advice. Now I DO cover the acetone while it is doing its job so evaporation is minimal, and I don't let it get low enough that I was able to detect residue, but new advice heeded form now on.

I used to clean literally hundreds of glass insulators in three gallons of concentrated HCL. One batch of acid was used for close to 1000 pieces cleaned. It would stillbe my cleaning batch, but I did not want to transport the acid when we moved. The soot on the glass settled to the bottom, but the HCL still made crystal clear glass - and it took about 10 seconds to do so. So I guess without thinking too much about it I was making a parallel with coins and acetone.

Another mistake I now see I made without thinking about it is that glass won't corrode like coins, so the situation is very different.