Acetone?

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John1

Hardware/DIY stores should sell acetone in a high enough quality for use on coins. You can also buy it from chemical supply companies, but laboratory-grade acetone is overkill.


There's lots of advice on the use of acetone on the forum; do a forum search for "acetone" and you'll have enough reading for hours. Perhaps the most important note, besides the safety notes given below, are that acetone will depolymerise certain types of plastics, so it's always best to use acetone in glass or porcelain containers, rather than plastic ones.


It removes things that are "organic" in a chemical sense. Things like paint, ink, varnish, glue, stickytape residue and (perhaps most commonly) the "green goo" that forms on coins that have been held in the wrong kind of plastic coin album pages for too long. It won't remove genuine toning, tarnish, corrosion, verdigris or oxidation, but there are some kinds of "artificial toning" that it can remove.


No. It's a solvent, not magic water. Anything it removes from the coin stays dissolved in the acetone, and can be redeposited on any further coins soaked in that acetone if it's allowed to dry out on it. Acetone is water soluble, so small quantities of waste acetone can, in most jurisdictions, be simply flushed down the sink with plenty of water. Or simply leave it in the bowl and let it evaporate away.


Yes. They can cause dizziness and drowsiness if breathed in sufficient concentration and some people are more sensitive to it than others, but the greatest danger comes from the flammability of acetone fumes. I always tell people that, from a safety point of view, they should "treat acetone the same as they would treat petrol/gasoline" - it's not fun to breathe, and it's not fun if there's anything remotely resembling a spark or fire nearby. Use it in a well ventilated area, preferably outdoors if you don't have access to good fume extraction ventilation.

Acetone is, if anything, even more terrifying than gasoline in one sense: an explosive concentration does not smell nearly as strong as gasoline does. With that said, the quantities and techniques we work with - I recommend jigger glasses with glass pane covers, others do baby food jars which is as large as it should get - preclude easy concentration of vapor so due diligence makes the task safe. This is also most conservative of the acetone, which you always use at a total loss.

Thanks everyone that helps,I'll check that site out.

The reason I recommend small containers is mostly about not giving the acetone any volume to fill with vapor. I use shot glasses, not jiggers, but that leaves very little acetone to spare and you have to watch it like a hawk. Even with a smooth pane of glass sealing the top that won't keep a Morgan covered overnight.