Let's Hear It For Acetone

Keep in mind, jewellage, that for this guy to take ammonia to a key date, he's either a fool or very, very experienced. There are cleaning and conservation methodologies which I would undertake myself, but I will never advocate on Coin Community because they're so dangerous if not done exactly right.

Ammonia is one of them.

Jewellge, if you decide to use acetone on your Morgans, be sure and search on this site for a thread on the proper way to do it. Acetone can be dangerous to you, (but not to your coins if done correctly). I consider an acetone bath for older circulated coins to be a conservation tool, not a cleaning. It removes only organic residue like hand grease, and will not affect anything on the coin that has interacted with the metallic surface, like toning or patina. I don't know of any coin that has been body bagged by a TPG for an acetone treatment.

I'm going to pass on answering your questions specifically because I don't get my coins slabbed, although I sometimes buy them that way. Perhaps someone more knowledgeable than me can give you an exhaustive list of reasons for body bagging a coin. I also kind of shy away from generalities like "is it always a good idea to give them an acetone bath before sending out for grading?" That depends on the coin. If there is no evidence of PVC or other organics, and particularly if a coin is uncirculated with no evidence of organics, why not just leave it alone? I had a few higher grade Mercuries that I didn't use the acetone on. After rinsing the well circulated halves and dimes in acetone, there was a greasy film left on the bottom of the glass baking dish when the acetone evaporated. Long term, I think the coins are better preserved without that gunk on them; however, none of them will be sent off for grading anyway. There is absolutely NO OTHER form of cleaning/soaking that I ever use on my coins, other than acetone, and than only when needed, . Just my thoughts.

Vermont, I wouldn't use acetone on copper, it is an extremely reactive metal. I have not found that soaking sliver coins any longer than about five to ten minutes in acetone gives any better results.

Acetone has only been shown to react with copper under specific conditions of long time period ( more than 12 hrs), water vapor presence, and Ambient light. If no light,no acetic acid formed, no reaction to the copper foil.
http://www.sunysb.edu/vescalab/rese...search7.html

The containers in this experiment were not sealed ( evident by the fact that all of the acetone had evaporated). I actually feel it was a poorly designed experiment myself, but I did change my acetone rinsing bottle to amber from clear.

My hesitation is in using "distilled water" as a final rinse. If the distilled water is not freshly distilled and stored in an air tight glass or impermeable plastic ( lab equipment type) container, it can absorb CO2 from air and develop a pH of less than 6.0( acidic side). If you use distilled water from a partially filled vinyl container, you have a risk IMO.



Jim

Thanks for all the advice, I asked the question of dipping all coins to be sent off to be slabbed because I have only sent 2 coins off to be slabbed and to my suprise both were slabbed and ANACS stated on the label, cleaned.I was in shock that these coins, both cc mint 'beauties' were labeled cleaned, I would never of guessed. I was told there were traces of cleaning elements found on the coins....

BIO, thanks for the input, I have no clue what was on the coins I sent out, Mike..
ps;one of the coins were a 1889-cc, came back VF-35-cleaned details, I was not expecting that!!

Badthad has much more experience with copper coins than I do. If he says it is ok than I believe it. I have never tried it before on a copper.