Cleaning Coins With Acetone.

with Andrew on every point.

all but how to retrieve the coins... I use nitrile golves... nitrile gloves aren't the best for acetone, but their purpose is to protect my skin from acetone exposure. I just have sensitive skin and would rather be careful

Acetone is useless for removing INorganic substances.

Some water soluble inorganic substances can be removed with distilled water.

Gentle water blasting may be useful for removing any substance that may be only lightly adhering to the surface of a coin. This cleaning technique much better than rubbing. Make sure that the coin is well secured.

With circulated gold coins, plain old soap and water and rinsing under tap water can bring them up nicely.

Valuable coins should be well protected after any cleaning, but that is the subject of many other threads.

Every raw coin I purchase gets an acetone soak as soon as it's home. PVC plasticizer manifestations are not visible in their early stages, and one never knows how the coin might have been handled by the previous owner. Since acetone has no effect whatsoever on the metallic properties of the coin, be it toning or cameo or luster, I have no fears at all about using it.

I do not use it when the aim is to remove crud clinging in tighter areas of a coin. Just plain water is far more effective, especially in a freeze-thaw-freeze cycle. That said, removal of such crud is only warranted in about 1% of the cases we believe it to be, since the surface under said crud does not age at the same rate as the rest of the coin and there's nothing which makes a cleaning as prominent as a successful cleaning.

I handle acetone bare-handed. It's not going to kill you, except that if you happen to have an open sore it gets into, you'll think it's killing you.

Acetone gets used once, and then disposed of. You do not want to redeposit what it's picked up, on the next coin. And since it is far more volatile than anything else we might use on a coin, it should always be the last liquid you employ on a coin. Being miscible, it's even better for removing water from the surface of a coin than a paper towel or evaporation. When you remove a coin from acetone, you can expect it to be dry before you manage to place it on a surface. It evaporates that fast.

Quoted for truth.

"Green ick" on a coin could be a manifestation of PVC plasticizer reaction, or it could be Bronze Disease (verdigris). Acetone is imperative for the former, and does very little about the latter. I use acetone as the initial treatment for a coin I'm going after with Verdi-Care, because it helps to dehydrate the verdigris, making the rest of the process somewhat easier, but don't expect it to "solve" verdigris on its' own.

If your "green" is due to PVC plasticizer, you can expect visible results from the first 10-15 minute soak. That much may or may not remove all of it; if you see results but not a complete cure in the first short soak the next step is to leave it in the acetone overnight. Pull it, swish it in a fresh acetone solution, and repeat the overnight soaks until the stuff is gone. Keep in mind, this is a highly flammable and volatile substance, and has to be treated with respect. The soaking container needs an airtight seal to prevent evaporation - that's the only way the coin will stay covered in liquid overnight. I personally use a jigger glass with a round bottom (so the coin doesn't lay flat and prevent the acetone from reaching part of it) and a small pane of glass over the opening for that tight seal.

Although PVC can react with copper, it's more likely that copper will manifest verdigris instead, and that's probably what you're looking at. A bit of time in acetone will tell the story.

Are there any carcinogenic properties relating to acetone
mentioned in the Safety Data sheets?