Coin Preservation Weekend tip...

ScarsdaleCoin

since people seem to be interested in coin preservation...here is another how to:

Copper, Brass and Bronze coin cleaning....

Use 2 oz of a 5% acetic acid solution or you can use distilled white vinegar...put this into cup and saturate with a level teaspoon of common table sale (sodium chloride)...you must stir until the salt is thoroughly dissolved....

Immerse the coins for between 5 to 10 seconds
agitate or rub the surfaces for best results

this cleaner mix will restore natural mint luster provided the coins are not heavily soiled and oxidized...

procedure

1. Cleaner
2. Cold water rinse
3. Hot water rinse
4. Dry
5. Preserve

PLEASE FOLKS...TRY THIS ON VERY LOW VALUE COINS IF YOU ARE NOT FAMILIAR WITH ANY OF THIS!

MrSpud

I never tried it, but it sounds very similar to something on the net I found the other day at Link . The link is actually an experiment for kids showing how to clean copper coins with salt and vinegar. I think it is interesting because it explains the chemistry of what is going on and shows how easy is is to understand the science. It also has a couple of neat side experiments, one using the leftover cleaning solution to copper plate stuff and the other showing what happens if you don't rinse the copper coins good after cleaning. The not rinsing part says "Why did the unrinsed pennies turn blue-green? When the vinegar and salt dissolve the copper-oxide layer, they make it easier for the copper atoms to join oxygen from the air and chlorine from the salt to make a blue-green compound called malachite."