Inherited HARCO COINMASTER Lincoln and Mercury/Roosevelt Sets...OUCH!

PipestonePete

Yesterday I posted images of 1909-S VDB & 1914-D Lincoln Cents which are part of a friend's inheritance. Also included in that inherited coin collection are some HARCO COINMASTER albums housing an uncirculated set of 1941- Lincolns and a complete set of regular issue (minus the 1916-D) Mercury & Roosevelt Dimes. Upon viewing these coins my brain immediately cued up
the words of the immortal Herb Morrison wailing "OH, THE HUMANITY!"
I am hoping that acetone can save the dimes but is there any cure for the copper Lincolns?

Typekat

The circulated dimes should clean up fine with acetone and maybe some light work with a wet Q-tip.

The pennies were probably nice before they spent time in the Coinmaster pages, which are absolutely ruinous to red uncirculated copper. Likely they are not salvageable.

johnny9434

😭

lkenefic

I think a gallon of acetone, a package of q-tips, and a lot of patience will work on the PVC damage to the silver, but as @Typekat said, the copper is a more reactive metal and more problematic. I'd still try an acetone e soak to see what that yields. There's a newer product for copper that's supposed to take the place of Blue Ribbon... I believe it's called Coin Conditioner. It's not the same formulation as the older product it was supposed to replace and I've had spotty results on older copper, but it could be worth a shot... good luck!

coinbuf

Buy stock in acetone. Acetone will not hurt the copper coins so soak them too, expect the worst as there may be some (many) which will be pitted and ruined. But some may be just fine after you get the goo off.

OAKSTAR

Thanks for the on-going updates and progression of this interesting Journey.

Typekat

@ikenefic is right, a whole package of Qtips will be required to lift the goo off the dimes.

But in my experience (34 years working in coin shops) circulated silver coins are usually not damaged by green goo. A proper removal of the goo should leave a coin’s surface in the same condition it was before being entombed in plastic.

However, mint state coins (silver, nickel, and especially red copper) are much more likely to become corroded after years of being in Coinmaster albums.

Manifest_Destiny

Lincolns are ruined, just sell them as is in the book and hopefully get more than 2-3x face. I would only clean up any dime worth more than melt and sell the rest for scrap as is.

Morgan13

I once cleaned an old copper coin by letting it soak in gun bore cleaner. No promises but that might be worth trying.

lordmarcovan

Ouch, indeed. Good luck with the acetone.

messydesk

I would actually start on the dimes by putting them all in a plastic container with rubbing alcohol and giving them a gentle rub with my fingers. If there are some more valuable dates, I'd be a little more careful, but the page shown looks like average circ stuff.

telephoto1

I'd acetone bathe all of them, cents and dimes. go buy a cheap box of dollar store Q-tips and have at it; that really should be all you need. For the more stubborn cents there is a product called Coin Care that is the successor to Blue Ribbon.

lilolme

As stated by others above the red copper??? Here is a previous thread from Kurisu about Verdi Care on circulated indian cents and then other examples in thread. Not sure how much time one is wanting to spend on this.

https://forums.collectors.com/discussion/1097950/verdi-care-results-4-indian-head-cents-it-went-well-straight-graded

For what it is worth a couple on pvc (low value bulk soak and individual).
https://forums.collectors.com/discussion/1084743/acetone-light-green#latest
https://forums.collectors.com/discussion/1077719/please-allow-me-to-introduce-myself-i-am-pvc-update-completed#latest

jmlanzaf

@lkenefic said:
I think a gallon of acetone, a package of q-tips, and a lot of patience will work on the PVC damage to the silver, but as @Typekat said, the copper is a more reactive metal and more problematic. I'd still try an acetone e soak to see what that yields. There's a newer product for copper that's supposed to take the place of Blue Ribbon... I believe it's called Coin Conditioner. It's not the same formulation as the older product it was supposed to replace and I've had spotty results on older copper, but it could be worth a shot... good luck!

Unless there's a 55 DDO in there, the acetone is likely more valuable than the cents that he's trying to clean.

Tom147

I had the exact same album of circ. Roosies that I put together back about 1970. Several years later, I opened it to find the same thing, not quite that bad, but close. Pure acetone ( not the nail polish remover kind ) soaked for several hours which cleaned most of them up. The stubborn ones got another soak and used cotton balls. ( didn't think about Q-tips ) Replaced the album with a Whitman. Good to go.

DDR

Same thing happened to me in the Harco Coinmaster albums, but with Buffalo Nickels. Not quite as bad as yours, but close.
With lots of acetone, q-tips and patience I was able to save about 3/4 of them; some even eventually made it into PCGS straight grade holders. But some were beyond saving. Good luck.

Meltdown

A friend showed me his family members old, nearly complete Commemorative half dollar collection in the same type of album. All really nice coins at one time coated in green PVC. It was so sad to see!
I never did hear if he was able to save them. Good luck with those.