Conservation Summary - Post Your Results

1910-S Lincoln Wheat cent
- 95% Copper, 5% Tin and Zinc
- Metal Detecting Find
- Not graded

Conservation Efforts
- Sodium Sesquicarbonate Bath
- Acetone Soak
- Microcrystalline Wax

Apologies, only have Obverse starting image

Very interesting!

I moved this to Main to cast a wider net.

nfine - totally accurate, I'd say exactly as in hand.

Edit - sunny day so here is coin-in-hand outside

I leave this stuff to the pros. I imagine you have to ruin a lot of coins when trying it yourself.

Canada 1947 25c Maple Leaf
- .800 silver .200 copper
- Source = Grandfather
- Raw -> MS63

Conservation Efforts
- ANACS Conservation Service

This coin was in the same 2x2 for roughly 50 years and had milky haze all over it.

1827/6 O-102 U.S. Bust Half.
89.2% Silver
10.8% copper

Bought at flea market with obvious PVC damage. They offered it at a price I couldn't refuse.

Dipped in acetone for about an hour or two. Still a details coin, but much better to look at IMHO.

Before....



After.....

Here is an example from NGCs conservation where they removed the opaque bluish residues from predominantly the obverse side.of this quarter with care to avoid hairline scratches. So certain residues and perhaps some of the haze seems to be able to be removed and then was able to be graded well. https://www.ngccoin.com/news/articl...onservation/



In other cases it seems a lot of trial and error is required. I think also the color we see as pink is the actual color of copper. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkish-orange color. The familiar reddish-brown color of copper is caused by copper(I) oxide, which is slowly formed on the metal surface but we are over restoring it too far to that more unnatural state for the coin. Copper reacts slowly with the oxygen in the air which is a process called oxidation. The process produces copper oxide, a brown or black compound, or tarnish and therefore over a long period it starts to turn brown. I think thats also why over dipping too long or with a mixture not diluted enough with copper coins will often leave an "unnatural" pink tone.

E-z-est also doesn't need to be full strength to remove haze and at full strength it can result in over stripping the surfaces after a few seconds again too long = bad. I use a 50/50 mix with distilled water myself but I dont have a lot of experience in this area yet.

Are you using a final rinse in distilled water after cleaning with acetone? If not perhaps try that. It seems that acetone dehydrates the coin and therefore removes moisure so the coins sometimes dont look quite normal afterwards. This has been described as a whitish look or dull.

My issue is that 90% of the time I'm working with ground finds that are caked up. With a good chunk of those, something needs to be done just to see the date/MM.

The general assumption/validation for self-conservation is that no TPG would ever want to touch/conserve a coin in a condition such as my first 2 replies - or any other results I've posted in the past. Those are pretty representative of what I find.

But I spent years testing on countless culls and now have confidence in if, and how I proceed. For example, this came out of the ground this morning. 1873 Indian - is it a double Liberty? No bare metal exposed and patina looks fairly robust so worth a few alkali soaks to find out.