Need Help!!! Sorting Through Forty Years Of Amassing.

The short answer is no. You can soak in Acetone if you want. You should never rub or wipe a coin to clean as it will leave hairline scratches.

The experts use a process called coin conservation to remove harmful and unwanted surface contaminants. Conservation does not leave hairline scratches on a coin. If you had a coin that was valuable and had unwanted surface contaminants that a soak in Acetone would not resolve, it may be worth to send the coin into NCS or PCGS for conservation.

Before sending them your hard earned cash, you may want to try what our own CCF member, who developed and sells verdicare, suggests.

BadThad has posted before a list of solvents to try. His order is water, acetone, then xylene. Of course these are done one at a time and over a period of time with rinsing between.

If one of these solvents does not work, and you do not want to practice on non-valuable coins using things like MS70 and Ezest (Q-tip works for spots), the you could see if the slabbing companies could do it.

I also find if its just foreign matter on the surface, I can soak with one of the above and then use a microscope and porcupine needle ( ebay - very inexpensive) to flake off the gunk that the solvent had worked on. The porcy needle is much finer than a toothpick and I have yet to scratch a coin with the needle itself. You have to be careful, like with a toothpick, you don't push around a piece of the gunk on the coin with the needle/toothpick though as that may scratch it depending on the gunk.

Better pics will definitely be needed.