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Does Cleaning Your Coins Damage Them In Any Way?

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Pillar of the Community
United States
4989 Posts
 Posted 12/26/2010  9:50 pm  Show Profile   Bookmark this reply Add fenton to your friends list
Yes salt and vinegar tend to turn desirable brown copper pieces into very undesirable "fake red" pieces that are worth 40% or less of the value of a good brown piece.

Even on an RB piece, a vinegar dip will dull the luster and reduce the value to a brown piece or lower.
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United States
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 Posted 12/26/2010  9:55 pm  Show Profile   Bookmark this reply Add just carl to your friends list
Vineagar contains an acid. And not all Vinegars are the same in acidic strength. Even the word salt is rather misleading. For example during the winter people buy salt for their sidewalks and that is reallly not the same as the table salt you put on your food. And too, check out the lables of salt for food and you will also find differences. I like the Popcorn Buttered Salt myself but never on a coin. Best not to clean coins.
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 Posted 12/26/2010  10:00 pm  Show Profile   Bookmark this reply Add wheatguy to your friends list
Acetone is generally considered a form of conservation and not cleaning, so if you take the necessary precautions acetone is often a good idea for certain coins.
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 Posted 12/26/2010  11:16 pm  Show Profile   Bookmark this reply Add Casutherland to your friends list
Alrighty thanks guys, I just thought I would ask. I personally like the shiny coins but I guess that's not where the value is at. I will not be using that method to clean them then lol.
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Australia
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 Posted 12/27/2010  01:01 am  Show Profile   Bookmark this reply Add sel_69l to your friends list
casutherland: You say you like shiny coins. That dull coating you see on older coins actually can help to protect them. It's called a patina. Remove that and you can lessen the value of a coin very considerably.
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 Posted 12/27/2010  09:51 am  Show Profile   Bookmark this reply Add just carl to your friends list

Quote:
Alrighty thanks guys, I just thought I would ask. I personally like the shiny coins but I guess that's not where the value is at. I will not be using that method to clean them then lol.


If you attend flea markets you may run accross people demonstrating auto polishes. The usually use old coins to do this with and you would really like the results. Really a great shine on them.
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United States
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 Posted 12/28/2010  6:38 pm  Show Profile   Bookmark this reply Add johnstac to your friends list
I thought it was distilled water and then acetone to make sure that there is no moisture left on the coin after?
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 Posted 12/28/2010  7:43 pm  Show Profile   Bookmark this reply Add BadThad to your friends list

Quote:
I thought it was distilled water and then acetone to make sure that there is no moisture left on the coin after?



It is! Acetone should always be the FINAL rinse. It will completely desiccate the coin and make it ready for storage. Be sure to put the coin in a holder immediately after the actone rinse so moisture from the air doens't have a chance to redeposit onto the surface.
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 Posted 12/28/2010  8:05 pm  Show Profile   Bookmark this reply Add Bryan1315 to your friends list
salt is granular so I don't think it would be a good idea to get it anywhere near a coin
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 Posted 12/29/2010  6:37 pm  Show Profile   Bookmark this reply Add BadThad to your friends list
Not only that, salt contains chloride, one of the most corrosive elements there is to metals!
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 Posted 12/29/2010  9:12 pm  Show Profile   Bookmark this reply Add Maineman750 to your friends list

Quote:
I thought it was distilled water and then acetone to make sure that there is no moisture left on the coin after?]

yes, I wrote that backwards...sorry
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 Posted 12/30/2010  07:18 am  Show Profile   Bookmark this reply Add sel_69l to your friends list
The only use I have for 'Salt 'n Vinegar' is to put on my 'Fish 'n Chips'!
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 Posted 12/30/2010  12:06 pm  Show Profile   Bookmark this reply Add SsuperDdave to your friends list
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 Posted 12/30/2010  8:56 pm  Show Profile   Bookmark this reply Add Pandesalapi to your friends list

Quote:
Acetone should always be the FINAL rinse

Lucky for me that I was able to read this. I have been using Acetone First then rinsing with distilled...Thanks BadThad
Cleaning coins sometimes also has positive effect on a case to case basis. My sample of an improvement due to cleaning is shown what I did on the coin below
Does-Cleaning-Your-Coins-Damage-Them-In-Any-Way?
You will notice above picture a deep scratch running across the obverse of the coin from 10:00 to 2:00 near center. Then try to look below the cleaned and re-tone same coin for over a year.
Does-Cleaning-Your-Coins-Damage-Them-In-Any-Way?
I guess on the second picture looked more nicer than the first one before the cleaning. I do not know how would it show in your own perspective and it would be nice to know if I did the right thing on the above coin?
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 Posted 12/30/2010  9:40 pm  Show Profile   Bookmark this reply Add johnstac to your friends list
Honestly, I like the first pic better simply because it shows more detail. I suppose deciding on which coins to clean is equally as important. For some reason, I thought the dipping was exclusive to copper cents or copper coated.
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