Subject 1 - Carbon Spots And Verdigris (1938 D Cent)

Nothing you can do that would help a copper coin this far gone. Believe me I've tried but once copper gets real corrosion under the surface it's a terminal case. I've got a beautiful Two Cent Piece that was struck from shattered dies and I bought it because it's the only one I've found from the die pairing in over 20 years of looking so far, I really hope to find one with out the dreaded copper rot disease on it.

This is after two weeks of soaking in Verdi-Care conditioner, and careful picking of the larger almost barnacle looking chunks of corrosion off. As you can see it still looks horrible, nothing I can do would ever make it better, I did make it so at least more of the die cracks would be visible, someday I will find better replacement I hope.



The carbon spotting is caused generally from moisture, the tiny little carbon speck you often find on copper coins, is usually from people talking over one and tiny almost microscopic droplets of spittle fall onto the coin only to turn into the flyspecks years later. Your Lincoln Cent was possibly splashed with something in the past, maybe a soda can was opened near it? Whatever it was it stayed on the surface long enough to do serious irreparable damage, I'm afraid.

This old post from a few years ago shows some encouraging examples though. The copper seems to fair worse than silver or clad coinage. This was using an ultrasonic cleaner;
(Go to the last page #4)
http://goccf.com/t/194249



Here is a post I did showing what Verdi-Care can overcome on the green verdigris stuff.

http://goccf.com/t/378882

The '38-D cent is beyond hope and (to me) not worth spending the time on because of its low value.

I agree the '38-D cent is too far gone for help (I have a 1919 in high grade with similar problem)

However, you could always try putting it on ebay as ...

RARE, $$VALUABLE$$ LEOPARD SPOTS ERROR COIN !!!!

If ever there was a candidate, this may be it.

Those are NOT carbon spots, they are the terminal stage of verdigris, the worst case scenario. When corrosion has progressed that far it cannot be removed without damaging the uncorroded surfaces. Also, as westcoin pointed out, the metal under the spots has formed a small pit and removing such a spot will still result in an ugly coin.

Splitting hairs, but this looks like cupric oxide to me, rather than verdigris (carbonate, chloride or acetate).