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 Replies: 27 / Views: 4,156 |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4085 Posts |
The other thing I will add is to ask if you have looked at them under different lighting conditions to see if that has anything to do with it. If I look at my Lincoln collection inside with just filtered indirect natural light, I feel like I can see every imperfection. When I fire up the overhead incandescents, it's red cartwheel luster all around. Just a thought.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1903 Posts |
Based on a couple of the coins in the picture I see fingerprints. You mentioned you keep them in your library. Two things here, books are notorious for drawing/holding/maintaining humidity in a room, especially if you have a lot of them. Second, if you have some older books, they may be offgassing sulphur compounds which are notorious for toning coins. My guess it is a combination of both.
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Valued Member
 United States
160 Posts |
Quote:
Two things here, books are notorious for drawing/holding/maintaining humidity in a room, especially if you have a lot of them. Second, if you have some older books, they may be offgassing sulphur compounds which are notorious for toning coins. My guess it is a combination of both. Yikes.. Could be.. I'm going to move them to a more exclusive shelf away from the books. I'm not a huge fan of storing my coins in air tight containers/zip locks/etc as I like easy access to admire them and they're a good conversation piece. I'm just going to go ahead and replace the toned coins, maybe give them a dip in acetone before I place them in. Luckily, the toning seems to have affected the more modern coins only, which are much easier to replace. Thanks for the advice ya'll. Also, finally found a nice 1970-S small date to complete the memorials.  It seems at least 70% of listings on ebay are mistakenly identified... |
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
19964 Posts |
Welcome to CC! Looks like the plain old browning/oxidation process is setting in. It happens to ALL copper.
Albums and folders should ALWAYS be stored in ziplocks, preferably with a desiccant pack and a sacrificial red cent. Then the ziplock should be stored in Tupperware.
It looks like you have a pretty high-quality Lincoln set. If you're serious about preserving your coins and halting the browning process, you should move them to airtite holders. I take NO CHANCES with mine. All of the nicest of my Lincolns are in airtites, in ziplocks (sometimes 2) and then in Tupperware.
Lincoln Cent Lover!VERDI-CARE™ INVENTOR https://verdi.care/
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Valued Member
United States
75 Posts |
BadThad,
Just what is the sacrificial red Lincoln suppose to do?
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Bedrock of the Community
Australia
21788 Posts |
Coins in Mylar / cardboard 2x2's, and the 2x2's into archival quality Mylar (not PVC) album pages for me!
Wouldn't risk red unc. or valuable coins in anything else, not even the cardboard slide window albums. Been there, done that, but never again.
I have seen nice red unc coins tone to black over a 20 year period, or less.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2651 Posts |
Uggg...I have been putting together an MS Lincoln set....I live in Mississippi...the Humidity State....so whats my plan of action? give them all a acetone rinse...put them in album...then put them in Ziploc with that thig-a-ma-jiggy? then in Tupperware? I would hate for my hard work and money to be all for naught.
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Valued Member
United States
98 Posts |
Also curious as to what a sacrificial red cent is...
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
19964 Posts |
Quote:
Just what is the sacrificial red Lincoln suppose to do? I like to clean a copper junk cent with steel wool and drop it into the ziplock with desiccant. The idea being that if any unwanted gasses find their way into the bag, they will be absorbed by the sacrificial cent instead of getting to my coins. |
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Valued Member
United States
75 Posts |
BadThad,
So has this happened? Or is your conservation method working swell as planned? Seems like a credible method of detecting issues in advance.
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
19964 Posts |
The red cents I put it DO change, so it appears to be working. Also, I have seen no change in ANY of my coins. I would call it a protection plan, not a "conservation method".
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Valued Member
United States
75 Posts |
Good! May try a sample of your method myself.
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Replies: 27 / Views: 4,156 |
First Page
Posted 03/06/2014 7:59 pm
