I REALLY need a lesson on PVC removal....

KenzoT

A co-worker of my wifes asked me to look at a coin collection his wife inherted from her father.
I was expecting your usual bunch of wheat cents, silver coins and foreign coins.
Instead, I was shown an almost complete set of cents from 1793 to 1984, only missing the 1799, 1856 Flying Eagle, 1877 and 1909-s Indian.
Now comes the problem....They were stored for the past 25 years in Harco Coinmaster Albums. The 09-s vdb, 09-s, 14-d, 22 plain and 55 doubled die are all nice high grade coins spotted with GREEN SLIME! What a bummer!
Is MS-70 still the best thing for these? Any other advise you can give me will be appreciated.

wingedliberty

Those Harco Coinmasters are nasty, it will be hard, I wish I had better news.


Brian.

Cam40

Acetone

oreville

I have had some luck with mineral oil followed by the acetone. Especially so on the copper coins.

crito

coppercoins

I think these other guys have it right on the money, especially for copper coinage. One thing to remember, though, is NOT to overuse the acetone - it will tone the brown parts of the coin a purplish color. The mineral oil is a good way to soak off the contaminents, then go light on the acetone. That will simply remove the oil and remaining slime if done properly. A re-coat of a very, very thin coating of mineral oil will help the serface texture come through and will protect the coin after your treatment. So: mineral oil soak (2-3 weeks may be necessary), air dry for a couple of weeks, light acetone usage to remove remaining contaminents (but will also remove the oil), then a re-coating of oil - very light...

That the method I have found to work best, have done it to many coins, and always receive compliments after proper treatment. Practice with pocket change so you will know what to expect and can gain some experience....nobody cares if you spend shiny, purple pennies!

Blackhawk

Well, to make a short story long...

I had some great results today using actone to remove PVC from a toned Morgan dollar. The coin's devices and open areas in the fields has deposits of green/brown/yellow PVC from long tern storage in a flip.

For the initial soak I put the coin in a glass bowl and used about 4 ounces of acetone. After soaking for about 5 minutes, I used a Q-tip and gently rubbed(more like just creating some turbulence) the areas of contamination. When it looked like all the areas were clean, I dumped the acetone and put about two ounces of new in for the final rinse. I do this because the acetone that was used in the initial removal has all the PVC from the coin dissolved in it. When you remove the coin from the solvet, the acetone evaporates, but leaves a small film of PVC on the coin. By rinsing with clean acetone, you remove this film.

A lot of people don't like to use acetone because of the health risks associated with it. Acetone is the major ingredient in most fingernail polish removers and while long term exposure could cause health problems, the small amount of time that you're exposed to it while cleaning a coin is minimal. I work with much worse chemicals on a daily basis, so this type of solvent doesn't bother me like it does some. The greater risk would be to use it around an open flame. Acetone evaporates very quickly and the fumes travel fast. If used in a well ventilated area, I think it's a great solvent for PVC removal.

By the way...it won't remove real toning. I've rinsed may nicely toned coins with acetone and have never had one get bleached. I think that any "toning" that would come off with acetone would be of the painted on nature.

To dispose of it, I take it outside and dump it over the decorative rocks that we have on the side of our house. It evaporates so fast than I've never seen it get to the ground below.

Bill

RKKay

What about Koinsolv?

merz2

The advice you've already received is correct.IMHO The collection sounds fantastic.Try hard to preserve those great coins.

CharlieB

PVC is just terrible and it is quite depresssing to discover your
coins covered with this stuff. I had to work on about 50 Washington
quarters and maybe a half dozen standing liberty quarters early this
year. Several were hit very hard where the PVC was concentrated.
I worked on them for about a week and a half and was patient.
I used mineral spirits (turpentine), the odorless type, with a
bunch of qtips, water on hand, and some cotton T-shirts to dry
them instantly. That's all I needed. It was really tough to work
the PVC out of some of the lettering. A coin was either easy
and a 1 minute job to get a PVC speck removed or a long, long
time getting the stuff removed. They all looked terrific
after I finished. It is a simple process just a very, very
tedious one to get the PVC removed. I sent them all to PCGS
and they came back nice MS grades and I had none rejected.
They were all mint state early Washington's 1932-1939,
and mint state 1924-1930 SLQ's. You just have to patient and careful
and sometimes you have
to use the qtip a little harder than you want to get out
the stubborn PVC.

nwcs

First, for the really good stuff I recommend not doing it yourself and having NCS do it. NCS web site. They're professionals at conservation and it will cost a few $$$ but will be worth it for coins that could be ruined by improper fixing.

Acetone is a good weapon against PVC, but not a cure-all. There's one product I have heard about, I cannot remember the name, like 1-1-2 thirea (I think) that will remove acetone and puts a coat of oil on the coin that dissolves into a brown color (only for use on brown copper with PVC) to match the real color of toning that copper should have in BN. Someone else may know more about what I'm thinking of.

KenzoT

NCS doesn't exactly HIGHLIGHT their sucess on copper coins unless it is the 1964 silver cent they show. Most of them look like they just dipped them and want to CROW about the results.
I feel a complusion to try to save these coins, maybe not for profit, but because I love coins and feel one of the 36,000 chain cents needs to be saved, not to mention the 1909 s vdb!
I went back out to his house today, photographed the 1793, 1804, etc, and moved the coins out of the Harco albums and into 2X2 flips, at least for the time being they are away from the Harco.
I appreciate all the info provided here and have brought home 5 of the common coins with the gunk on them to experiment on.
I will keep you updated on results.
Thanks to all.......