Cleaning Chinese Cash

historygeek

Can anyone give me advice on cleaning out the crud that gets in the Chinese characters?

laurentyvan

Define crud... some of it moves with a little acetone soak and judicious application of a toothpick or cotton swab, a method I've used a few times with some success.

historygeek

Crud = 600 years of packed in dirt.

JohnZ

What laurentyvan said. I've had good results with acetone. Just be sure to get the pure stuff from a hardware store. Nail polish removers contain a plethora of additives. Also, rinse with lots of distilled water. Tap water is too hard, and will leave mineral deposits.

spoon

Give it the good ol' olive oil/acetone treatment and then use a brass pick to gently get the tough stuff out if a toothpick won't work.

edit: brass, not bronze

historygeek

Yeah, but the problem is that Chinese cash often has high relief characters that have small spaces in between.

Like this character:

lordmarcovan

Toothpick after an olive oil soak, or, if you're like me and too impatient for olive oil to work, use Vaseline. Follow up with a light rub with a paper towel, to remove the excess Vaseline (and with it, a lot of green crud). That probably won't hurt anything.

Try the Vaseline rub with a paper towel on even an average circulated Wheat penny, and you'll be surprised how much greenish brown crud comes off. The Vaseline leaves the surfaces nice and glossy but is nonpermanent and won't affect the color of a coin.

spoon

An itty-bitty pick should work. Other than that I don't know of anything that could without stripping the metal (acids, electroshock).

historygeek

Maybe I need to buy a Dremel drill or use a dentist's drill.

historygeek

Thanks everyone.

santelia

I've also used lemon juice; read it somewhere. If it's an older common coin, like Northern Sung cash I wouldn't worry too much. They are generally cheap ($1) and if you can clean it enough to identify it, it generally goes up in value. Be patient with the soaking, and change the stuff when it gets contaminated or cloudy.

sumnom

Do be careful though, you don't want to take up part of the coin, or break it. I have seen cash coins snap.

newsman

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How about steel wool?