Clipped Planchet?

Most of the advice given prior to this post regarding cleaning the coin is clearly bad advice and should NOT be given under any circumstance. Basically what started in this thread as a decent curved clip turned out to be a partially off-color cleaned curved clip worth about 10% of its previous value, and the OP has all of you to thank for ruining the coin.

If you do NOT know exactly what you are doing by having tested, cleaned, then tested again with hundreds of normal coins until you get it right, WHY on EARTH would you want to try cleaning a decent error coin you've spent good time finding? This makes no sense! There was nothing wrong with the coin before, and now it's irreversibly damaged!

The ONLY correct advice to give a new collector wanting to "polish-up" their coins is to simply NOT do it.

jokingjoker - Nearly all the time what you do to a coin depends completely on the specifics of what's on the coin that needs to come off. Acetone is not the answer to all scenarios. in fact NOTHING is the answer to all scenarios. In many cases the coin should be left alone because nothing will chemically help it. In other cases one thing is right and another thing is completely wrong. it is IMPOSSIBLE to tell someone using photos what would be the right thing to do with any coin, and it would be IMPOSSIBLE for any newbie to guess what the correct solution is the first time given one coin and a chemistry lab. It takes years of practice, testing, trial and error, experience, and hundreds of coins to perfect an eye for what's wrong with a coin and what will fix it (if anything).

Blindly handing out advice about what they used, what works, and what to try is akin to my asking what to do about my car that has a strange noise coming out of the engine compartment. You gonna tell me I need to rebuild my engine because I typed out on a message board that I hear a noise in my car?

To answer your question directly - acetone and distilled water will work for certain issues, but will do absolutely nothing positive for a number of other issues. It can help some things, but is a complete waste of time for others. And in still other cases it will do more harm than good. I have to see the coin, get a good understanding of its texture, color, and what the issue is...only then could I tell you with THAT COIN whether your solution is right or wrong. There are no blanket policy answers to your post.

The absolute best bet is to never offer advice for methods of cleaning or conserving coins on a message board for a coin you have never seen in person. It can be dangerous, costly, and can lead to ruining perfectly good coins that should have been left alone....as is the case in this thread.

Additionally, I have personally witnessed in message boards across the internet - including this one - that fewer than 25% of people who read the posts can really follow directions, and even with the perfect solution printed in front of their face will find a way to screw it up.

Dispensing advice on a message board should be left to those who truly understand the subject and can write directions very clearly. That advice should ONLY be used by those who are honestly certain they can read and follow directions fully and carefully.