Cleaning Off Containers Of Musty Dirty Coins.

Forget the distilled water. get them out of their boxes. and give them an acetone bath ,only a few at a time. if they are really that bad then give them a second rinsing in clean acetone . throw the boxes away.
put all the good coins in 2x2 holders or flips.

Most like it will be the boxes that harbor the smell.

Febreze, in the vicinity, NOT on the coins.

Never, ever put coins in just water and soap. May as well just put them in a Acid bath.

Suggestion. As soon as possible, separate those coins. By that I mean separate what appears to be Copper from other materials. Then too, separate what may be Silver from other materials. Next take out any coins in those old Whitman Folders. Hopefully the rears of those coins are still OK.
There is a problem with dissimilar metals touching each other and creates an electrical charge. Small, yes, but enough to slowly ruin coins. Those old Whitman Folders usually have glue on the rear of the slots which also effects coins.

It is. I've almost got all the world coins rinsed off and into bags. Once that's done I'll start sorting them. Then onto the tins of Cdn pennies and nickels. They don't need the rinse as they are in better smelling shape being in metal containers. I think it'll be easiest for me to just make rolls of them first by year and then have a good look over them for anything interesting. They look to be all from the 40's and 50's so should be easy to fill a bunch of rolls. There are also about 10 rolls of coins already, a roll of 1951 nickels, 3-4 of the 1967 nickels, rolls of steel nickels, a tombac one and 1c 1967's. Oh and a roll of 1921-1960 date run Lincoln cents, in addition to the full Whitman.
It's fun to go through.