Posted 05/15/2015 11:16 pm
It sounds like the Harco albums are survivors. Plasticized PVC won't get brittle like that. You can let them be for the moment. Unfortunately....
Consistent with the coins' condition, each and every one of the ones in PVC will need its' own separate soak in clean acetone. Perhaps more than one, perhaps xylene can do as well from a little lower on the polarity scale. But there's no magic bullet for PVC plasticizer outgassing, especially after it's reached the stage where it's actively green on the coin.
2-3oz per coin is enough - I use large shot glasses - and the first overnight soak will probably tell you what bad spots may need to be individually attacked with a thorn or toothpick (condition dependent, though, as I'm not attacking a Proof that way). Each soak has to be followed by an individual rinse in clean acetone.
All the usual cautions and fire-breathing angst about leveling your neighborhood and launching your entire house into Low Earth Orbit if so much as a whiff of acetone escapes into the atmosphere may be assumed, of course.
And don't forget, acetone is an organic solvent and you are organic.
So how many coins we talking here?
Consistent with the coins' condition, each and every one of the ones in PVC will need its' own separate soak in clean acetone. Perhaps more than one, perhaps xylene can do as well from a little lower on the polarity scale. But there's no magic bullet for PVC plasticizer outgassing, especially after it's reached the stage where it's actively green on the coin.
2-3oz per coin is enough - I use large shot glasses - and the first overnight soak will probably tell you what bad spots may need to be individually attacked with a thorn or toothpick (condition dependent, though, as I'm not attacking a Proof that way). Each soak has to be followed by an individual rinse in clean acetone.
All the usual cautions and fire-breathing angst about leveling your neighborhood and launching your entire house into Low Earth Orbit if so much as a whiff of acetone escapes into the atmosphere may be assumed, of course.
And don't forget, acetone is an organic solvent and you are organic.
So how many coins we talking here?
