Possible solution to the SAE milk spot problem.

Russ

Hi Ron,

I submit mostly proofs from the late 50's and early 60's. When I first started submitting some, but not all, of the coins would later develop milk spots. Might be six months, might be a year, but some were VERY bad. I reasoned that there must be some form of contaminants on the coins that doesn't begin to spot up until after exposure to the air. Thus, I started giving every proof from that era that I submit a very quick dip to stabilize the surfaces. Since doing that, not even a single coin has later developed spotting.

I don't know if the root cause of the problem with the SAE's is the same as it is with these earlier proofs, but if it is this will likely solve the problem. It would take some time and a large enough sampling to determine it one way or the other.

Russ, NCNE

CoinKing

We've tried dipping some of the coins to see if the spots can be removed. They cannot. In our experience, the spots only get worse as time goes by and just because they are invisible today doesn't mean that they won't be visible tomorrow. As I stated before, unless someone can come up with a way to stabilize the surfaces on these coins, the risk of spotting remains.

This advice is for Mint State examples only, not the Proofs.