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 Replies: 6 / Views: 1,199 |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1283 Posts |
I recently began collecting coins again since my childhood collection got stolen. I only have 5 so far, one is a 1851 Large Cent. It has exceptional detail for its age, but very slight blackening (corrosion) in one area on the back.
I realize you're not supposed to "clean" valuable coins, but is there a way to remove the corrosion, or at least prevent it from getting worse?
The dealer recommended letting it sit in olive oil for an extended amount of time. But I'd rather do my homework before messing with it.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
773 Posts |
Extra virgin olive oil does take a long time,I've got a few that have been soaking 3 weeks,slowly but surely they are looking better.You probably do want to get that stopped though.
Welcome to the forums!!
:) sn31.
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Rest in Peace
United States
2684 Posts |
USArmyParatrooper, welcome to the forum! You'll find a very friendly crowd here and a lot of collective expertise. There's also a number of us veterans here, so you're in good company. Me: 24 years Active and Reserve (68-72), retired LtC, USAR Signal Corps. General rule of thumb is to never clean a coin as you mentioned. However, with a severely dirty or degraded coin such as you describe, olive oil is the preferred method, but a coin needs to soak for weeks or months and even then it might not be effective. Copper is a highly reactive metal, so the options for home cleaning are limited. I am not certain acetone would work. One option is to submit it to Numismatic Conservation Service http://www.ncscoin.com/ which is about the only legitimate coin cleaning service available. One has to decide, however, if a particular coin is worth the expense of submitting it to NCS. Often, it is better to leave a coin in whatever state it might be in as long as the details are still visible and further degradation of the coin is not likely. Fred |
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
1283 Posts |
quote:
Originally posted by Morgan Fred
USArmyParatrooper, welcome to the forum! You'll find a very friendly crowd here and a lot of collective expertise. There's also a number of us veterans here, so you're in good company. Me: 24 years Active and Reserve (68-72), retired LtC, USAR Signal Corps.
General rule of thumb is to never clean a coin as you mentioned. However, with a severely dirty or degraded coin such as you describe, olive oil is the preferred method, but a coin needs to soak for weeks or months and even then it might not be effective. Copper is a highly reactive metal, so the options for home cleaning are limited. I am not certain acetone would work. One option is to submit it to Numismatic Conservation Service http://www.ncscoin.com/ which is about the only legitimate coin cleaning service available. One has to decide, however, if a particular coin is worth the expense of submitting it to NCS. Often, it is better to leave a coin in whatever state it might be in as long as the details are still visible and further degradation of the coin is not likely.
Fred
Thanks for the quick reply (both of you). I'm glad this site seems to be pretty active. Later today I'll take a close proximity photogragh and perhaps you guys can tell me what you think. It's a shame the blackening has started because there's so much detail left on the coin. BTW, thank you for your service. My wife has to bring in an object that relates to African American History for one of her college classes. She wanted to talk about blacks in the history of our military, like Buffalo Soldiers and the "Triple Nickel" (555th Parachute Infantry Battalion). I thought, buffalo soldirs.. triple nickle... so I bought an AU 1913 Buffalo nickle for her to bring :) |
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Pillar of the Community
Australia
3831 Posts |
Here is something you should take note of. Although many people claim that olive oil does help to remove those disgusting verdigris, yes it does, but it WILL tone the coin!!!
My partial coin collection http://www.omnicoin.com/collection/gxseriesMy numismatics articles and collection: http://www.gxseries.com/numis/numis_index.htmRegularly updated at least once a month. |
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Valued Member
United States
223 Posts |
gxseries, what do you mean by tone? The penny I posted cleaned by jeweller still has a lot of green corroded areas on it. Can't do any more harm to it or can I?
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Pillar of the Community
Australia
3831 Posts |
Depends. My case was very unfortunate and I had a few reddish coins with a bit of verdigris, only to see the olive oil quite efficiently loosing the verdigris, but to make the reddish color actually BROWN.
Yes, you can say in theory it shouldn't happen since it's oil, but olive oil is slightly acidic! So really, instead of just recommanding to others that you heard it was good, do an experiment! I am very bitter over this and would like to share my experience before it's too late.
My partial coin collection http://www.omnicoin.com/collection/gxseriesMy numismatics articles and collection: http://www.gxseries.com/numis/numis_index.htmRegularly updated at least once a month. |
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Replies: 6 / Views: 1,199 |
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Posted 10/07/2006 1:20 pm
