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 Replies: 19 / Views: 4,765 |
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New Member
United States
1 Posts |
Last week I was at my father's house snooping around in his basement. It's an old house that used to have a coal furnace. The basement is filled with all kinds of junk, so anyway I'm looking around and in the corner of the old coal bin I find this cloth bag full of coins. They were so dirty and grimey I couldn't make out what they were. I cleaned a couple of them up and turns out those two coins were a Morgan silver dollar and a Walking Liberty half dollar. How amazing...there must be 50 -- 60 coins in this bag. Anybody know an easy way to clean up these coins. I used steel wool because soap couldn't penetrate this grime. |
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Pillar of the Community
Egypt
3470 Posts |
First  to CC forum  Second, stop cleaning the coins because you are decreasing their values. I would suggest to take pics and post them, so that members could see what is exactly on the coins and give you an advice of how to remove it. If you need a quick tip until you take pics.... place them in pure acetone (not the one used to remove nail polish) it is supposed to remove any organic material on the coins in a few hours. Remove the coins from acetone and place them under running water (some members would recommend distilled water) then dry them with a cotton cloth without rubbing. Will wait for the pics |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
870 Posts |
STEEL WOOL = NOOOOOOOOOOOO!
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Pillar of the Community
United States
8904 Posts |
Quote:
I used steel wool because soap couldn't penetrate this grime.  Please stop! You stand a very good chance of ruining the nice coins your Dad left for you! and Edited by Moe145
06/24/2011 5:39 pm
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Forum Dad
 United States
24167 Posts |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2661 Posts |
Steel wool  . |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
609 Posts |
OMG!  just kidding, but seriuosly, dont clean them!  |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4778 Posts |
"How to clean coins?" Not with steel wool! |
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Valued Member
United States
424 Posts |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
870 Posts |
That's great advice from Eg - you can pick up a tin of acetone at the hardware store for $10. I think you'll find that for a lot of them a quick dip will get rid of most of the crud. Get some cloth towels to clean them with - and like he said, DON'T RUB them. =)
For the ones with worse goo, let them soak - for a few minutes or for a few hours. Most of it should come off.
PLEASE DO BE CAREFUL WHEN USING ACETONE. It's HIGHLY flammable.
Cool? =)
And yeah, welcome!! :D
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Pillar of the Community
United States
860 Posts |
If you had to use steel wool, it is quite possible what you see as grime is really black silver corrosion, and acetone will not help that. So if after using acetone, they are still black, their value is decreased , even if you use a silver dip to try and remove some of the black. If you do decide to remove some of the black if the acetone didn't, use a silver dip made for coins and not one for silverware or candlesticks such as tarn-x, etc.
Photos after the acetone would be good to evaluate.
Acetone removes water so well from the metal, I use it as the final rinse allowing to air dry rather than touching it with any cloth. Of course these sound rather more damaged than a few cloth marks.
Coal smoke, dust, etc. often has high sulfur content that causes rapid corrosion.
Edited by desertgem
06/24/2011 8:25 pm
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Pillar of the Community
United States
3640 Posts |
If at the least I hope that four ought "OOOO" steel wool was used. Not recommended using steel wool period on coins but
OOOO will not even leave a sign of a scratch on chrome, gold,
porcelain, glass, stainless steel etc. It even takes crap off of a brand new car paint finish or new paint job.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
3345 Posts |
DO NOT CLEAN
Its as simple as that!
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Valued Member
United States
81 Posts |
Please stop cleaning the coins! You are hurting the my heart, I am just a collector, not a investor. The Acetone is the right thing to try if you could, please take a photo with close ups. You might have some valuable coins there, especially if they were hidden. Look at this forum every day, you will learn a lot about coins. And by the way, Welcome
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Moderator
United States
16679 Posts |
Steel wool... :o
You should have used acid just the same.
WOW!
What if some of those Morgans were keys!
Do not clean them. Period!
swcoin.ecrater.com
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Valued Member
United States
380 Posts |
Feel free to send me your coins, I'll let you know that they're just junk candy wrappers ;)
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Replies: 19 / Views: 4,765 |
Posted 06/24/2011 5:24 pm
