Storage Damage And A Quest To Have That Sorted For Good - In Depth Explaini

that much I know and always avoided contact of any sort between the main categories of metals. That being said, I've never differentiated between the bronze quality in a follis and a 400 years earlier shekel. I might give it a go with the silica packs (not sure how they will fit in the bag), but I do want to know if there is anything that I can do to clean/salvage them or not allow that to spread further

What is that white powder? does it spread? how does it affect the metal? can it be cleaned?

I apologize if I flood with my questions. I am really curious to understand what has actually happened to them

and I would love to have them slabbed, but I simply cannot afford that :( the scale and the costs of doing that in Denmark is beyond ridiculous (it'd take a few kidneys and the house to pay for a 10th of the collection).

@westcoin

Thank you so much for the explanation and potential solutions (this forum is a proper gold mine and it actually helped me push the sorrow away)

are the archival poly bags the same as the LDPE bags? because those I have plenty of (one of the reasons why I started transferring the coins from 2x2s to those - little did I know... - the other being the fact that I could write on them and in doing that catalogue the coins digitally)

However, some of the coins that got into trouble, were stored in exactly those kind of bags (albeit, some of the bags seemed made from softer plastic than some others, even though the supplier was the same). The bag in the picture is of one of those LDPEs

Those flannel envelopes look good and I use something similar at work, but that'll imply that I'd have to revert to using 2x2s

Having dealt with quite a few auction houses, I've also noticed that quite a big chunk (way more than the slabbed ones) of them use those little plastic envelopes that are clearly not air tight and the coins seem to endure. Have quite a few fortunate examples, which makes me scratch my head even harder.

I usually try to keep it simple for anything older than a specific timeline (I know it's dumb) so depending on the state, I will use anything from just water (and soap) to lengthy soaking in olive oil (the one that works the best for mild cleaning), baking powder+water, vinegar and used to do the ultra-sound cleaning for the ones that I dug out myself (which just happens to be the case of the one that came out of the bag in the picture)

My initial thought was also spores and my missus even made a joke saying that it's great now that I've brought anthrax inside the house, but at a closer look it doesn't seem like it'd be that. That being said, I have no way to check whether it is that or not...or I don't know any way to do it.

I've read about the acetone trick, but waited for someone to bring it up and assure me that I wouldn't be doing something even dumber.

And I do have quite a few unopened intercept albums and a few slips, but in knowing so little, I always thought a closed bag would protect better than an open slip (which also made me confident that they were easier to store). It kind of acted as the catalyst for going forward with the bags

hi @westcoin

apparently my baby status doesn't allow me to message you, but I would be very much interested in those articles

after more research (I know...having no life here)
I think I might have found it

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronze_dise ASE

I can e-mail you then, but you need to go to your profile and turn on accept message/email requests. Don't worry no spam have I ever got from here after allowing on my profile for over 6 years now. Bobby runs a tight ship here.

@westcoin

done! :)