Large Collection Ruined?

I'm loaded with questions today, sorry. What is the general thought about ultrasonic cleaning? In the little I know about it I believe if you can devise a way to suspend the object metal should not be changed in any way. I may be wrong but I'm investigating everything.

Those minor rim toning spots are irrelevant to anyone. I'd leave a coin like that alone. The uglier ones, I'd dip if they have lots of mint luster. The mint luster needs to be very strong or the dipping may result in a dull looking coin. I'd only dip a coin that looks like the mint luster is dripping off the coin.

I appreciate everyone's comments and suggestions. Unfortunately I am beginning to feel I should have just left these coins where they were. As I look through more and more of them I am finding that most of them are ruined, at least to my eye. Almost every one has these black spots from the plastic envelopes being compromised. Instead of the nostalgia I was looking for I find myself feeling ill about what they have become. There simply isn't a way I see other than spending a large amount of money with professionals to ever make them attractive again. I have not even scratched the surface of what I have but I am sure the rest will all look like these. The only ones I have seen so far without damage are coins that were already dark and not of a high grade. These in the photo all exhibit the black spots as do every other nice coin I have looked at. Excuse my downbeat tone but I really am disturbed by the whole experience. It's like having a beautiful original classic car that's perfect except for the dent in one fender.

I would probably spot treat them with Verdicare, which may help the appearance a little and may prevent the spot growth. Then I'd just reholder them in new 2x2s.

That's the issue. I wouldn't want to dip or clean the whole coin......most of the coins are beautiful except for some few small spots near the edges. What's really got me is that if even 50 Percent of them were spotted it would still hurt but at least you would be left with some nice ones. I'm finding almost all the silver coins have some damage, at least 9 out of 10. The nickels I've quickly looked at seemed to have fared much better. I haven't really looked hard at the pennies but the few I've seen all look dark. Once again please excuse my inexperience in these conversations, I don't mean to come off short in any way but I'm becoming very frustrated as the extent of the damage continues to register.

Baseball is correct. They are NOT ruined. Do NOT CLEAN THEM IN ANY WAY if you want to preserve the value of the coins. If you don't care about how much they're worth, clean them. It's up to you.

I see some proof Franklin half dollars in your picture. If you clean them, the value will instantly be ruined. As I said, it's up to you.

I'm going to take the advice of the posters who say they are better off left looking as they do than having anything other than professional paid services performed on them. They sat for forty years and at this point I'm going to stash them away again until my next of kin inherit them. I will obviously store them in better conditions than they were stored previously. After taking them out I had briefly thought it might be a neat idea to get into the hobby being that I already had this large collection but I see now that will not be the case. I'm not a rich man so I have no interest in spending lots of money up front or trading large chunks of the collection away to have them repaired by people I don't know anything about. I'm not at all happy with how they look regardless of any other opinions. I've decided it's best to let sleeping dogs lie in this case. I would like to add I had no plans of hacking away at these coins, if I were to have attempted anything I would have been very deliberate in my research. I experimented on 2 coins out of hundreds. Thank you to all who contributed to this thread, I really appreciate your time and opinions. It seems like this site is populated by genuinely concerned and helpful individuals which is refreshing these days.

You've inherited quite a nice collection. I can understand completely why you'd be unhappy with the discoloration, but there was nothing that could be done to prevent it. There's no way you would've known. You did end up making a good decision to not clean them and just store them newly. I guarantee that you will find that the coins will actually LOOK better when you put them in their new holders, especially if you purchase some of those round air tight containers (image attached). Occasionally I find that the old and grubby coin slips will add to the "dirty look" (even though a lot of your coins only have slight tarnish).

My mother actually collected coins when she was really young, and although they were stored in mylar coins slips (instead of the PVC ones that it seems you have), they still gained some discoloration.

My advice to you would be continue with properly storing your coins, but maybe get into doing some coin collecting of your own. Coin roll hunting (or CRH) is a really inexpensive way to find cool coins, and you might be able to expand your collection and improve your coin knowledge! You already have a pretty great head start.

Probably one of the best hobbies to get into, because you never lose money, you only make money. If you ever decide that you've had enough, just remember that it's all currency! Just keep doing what makes you happy!

Hope you're doing well with your coins! Best of wishes!