1964 Recommendation: Wrap Your Coins in Lead or Aluminum Foil

WoodenJefferson

1964 Handbook of United States Coins
21st Edition R.S. Yeoman

Talks about wrapping coins in lead or aluminum foil and then placing them in a tarnish proof envelope.

Anyone ever hear of this practice or actually performed this task and what were the results?

Page 15



Section of interest

MsMorrisine

lead tastes good

GRANDAM

My Grandfather used to wrap coins in aluminum foil. They weren't uncirculated and he wasn't concerned about grade.

I just remembered this when you posted

GrandAm

PonyPuller

I received dozens of rolls of circulated silver from the late 1950's and 60's from my grandfather, all of which were wapped in aluminum foil BEFORE being placed in a paper roll!

- Mark

WoodenJefferson

It appears this may have been once a common practice.

adamlaneus

"Whitman's coin folders make this possible"

lsica

Rubbing a little mercury on silver coins makes them look shiny too



Oy vey

Bayard1908

When I was a kid in the 1970s, we always wrapped our best circulation finds in aluminum foil.

derryb

I have a neighbor who lines his hat with aluminum foil

Now that you mention it I don't believe his head shows any signs of toning.

PerryHall

<< <i>I received dozens of rolls of circulated silver from the late 1950's and 60's from my grandfather, all of which were wapped in aluminum foil BEFORE being placed in a paper roll!

- Mark >>



How did the coins look? Aluminum may act as a sacrificial anode to protect the coins. Any metallurgists out there?

PerryHall

Where can one buy lead foil and what was it ever used for?

Walmann

From the 2004 Coin Doctors book: be sure to remove foil before baking...

Cocoinut

I bought a couple of roll of wheat cents in the late 1960's that were wrapped in foil. One of them was a 1943-P, wrapped only in foil. Most of the coins had a slightly dull luster. Whether they had been stored in amother manner before that and later wrapped in foil, I can't say, but the last time I looked at them, there didn't appear to be any further degradation of the surfaces. The other roll was a 1946-P, wrapped in a thin paper-lined foil (sort of like what was used to wrap sticks of chewing gum back then) that was thin enough that it still fit into a plastic cent coin tube. I've unwrapped just the end of that roll twice in 40 years, and the coins are immaculate - they look like they were just minted. Knowing what the '46-P brings in MS66RD, I've had to resist the temptation to break up the roll.

Jim

coinkat

I have heard this and never knew the original source...

I have copper coins wrapped in foil and did that about 35 years ago.

adamlaneus

As far as Aluminum goes, the reason for using it with copper may be "Galvanic Corrosion". Lead too.

Without getting into details, when two metals are in close contact (plus an electrolyte...let's just assume that over time atmospheric moisture does this), one of them will want to corrode more than the other. In this case, Aluminum is the sacrificial metal. The amount of corrosion is negligible, but it does not take much corrosion to create a visible impact on a fresh shiny copper coin.

Take a look at this Galvanic Series

The materials higher up the list are the noble ones, the materials lower down are the sacrificial ones.

COOP

<< <i>I have a neighbor who lines his hat with aluminum foil

Now that you mention it I don't believe his head shows any signs of toning. >>

I can't stop laughing.

DieClash

<< <i>As far as Aluminum goes, the reason for using it with copper may be "Galvanic Corrosion". Lead too.

Without getting into details, when two metals are in close contact (plus an electrolyte...let's just assume that over time atmospheric moisture does this), one of them will want to corrode more than the other. In this case, Aluminum is the sacrificial metal. The amount of corrosion is negligible, but it does not take much corrosion to create a visible impact on a fresh shiny copper coin.

Take a look at this Galvanic Series

The materials higher up the list are the noble ones, the materials lower down are the sacrificial ones. >>




What adam said!


To take it one step further you can actually remove toning from silver coin by dissolving baking soda & salt in boiling water then pouring the hot, but not boiling mixture into a bowl with your silver coin and a piece of aluminum. The aluminum has a greater affinity for the toning sulfides than the silver. Consequently, the sulfides migrate from the surface of the silver coin to the aluminum metal.

Link

SUMORADA

There was another thread about this a while back, I purchased several rolls of Roosevelt Dimes a couple years ago from a seller on ebay that were wrapped in aluminum foil and placed back in the OBW roll, they were the nicest looking coins that I have ever seen in rolls, they were spotless, I also remember pulling (3) 1957 P Roosevelt MS66 FB's from a single roll,

As I mentioned in the other thread the ends of the rolls under the paper looked like the foil top on Jiffy Pop Pop Corn....

rec78

Danger!! Danger!! Will Robinson!!
Not a good idea for nickels at least--just happens that i am now opening rolls of nickels that my father wrapped in aliminum foil. They are 1957-P and 1959-P. My dad put the aluminum foil on the outside of the wrappers. The coins have almost no luster left and look circulated. The edges are corroded and none of them look BU. He must have seen that advice . A lot of them are corroded and unsalvageable as collector coins. Fortunately they are not valuable coins and i will be taking them to the bank shortly.

The ones he put into tubes are still nice BU. (except that i cannot get some of them out of the tubes as the tubes must have shrank over the years).

TwoSides2aCoin

I ran out of foil making a hat, so I put the coins in a jar of vegetable oil.

stinkinlincoln

Wasnt this the time in the world when people were told to 'duck & cover' from a nuclear blast?




My dad kept Mint Red Wheat Cents wrapped in foil for years.

Batman23

I have a few rolls of unc. 1960 cents that are foil wrapped. I bought them that way at an estate auction about 15 years ago. They still look nice and bright.

WoodenJefferson

<< <i>I ran out of foil making a hat, so I put the coins in a jar of vegetable oil. >>

oreville

The aluminum foil wrapped rolls worked very well for lincoln cents, dimes and quarters, starting with their widespread use in the 1950's.

They were not commonly used for nickels as nickels were not perceived to be a concern for future toning.

The halves were too big and bulky to practically consider using foil.

The results of using aluminum has been quite good over the years but the extra time involved to properly prepare these rolls plus the fear of scratching the coins made this practice fade over the years.

The arrival of modern plastic tubes in the early 1960's (first the press and twist lock kind and then the screw top) cut into the use of aluminum foil.

I believe there were still some collectors who did not have access to the tubes, nor wanted to be bothered ordering them or mistrusted them. But over time, since using aluminum foil was so labor intensive, the use of them really waned.

By the early 1970's, the use of the aluminum foil largely disappeared.

rmpsrpms

The very best Lincoln rolls I've seen have been wrapped in foil. The galvanic corrosion argument only partially explains it, but I think the main reason is that the foil provides a very good air and moisture seal around the roll. The galvanic corrosion properties of the Aluminum (that's Aluminium to any Brits out there) only affect where it's in contact with the coins, mostly on the end coins and the edges. In fact the foil-wrapped rolls I've seen were bright on the end coins and pristine on the edges, so this supports the theory. But the aluminum was not in contact on the inner coins obv/rev so would not be affected. The worst situation then is a paper roll wrapped in aluminum. I've seen many of these, and none were particularly nice. The aluminum sealed in the gases emanating from the paper, and the paper acted as a moisture absorbent, so it was the worst of all worlds. Well-sealed plastic tubes are the best, though, if keeping oxygen and moisture away from the coins is the goal.

OK, one more point...many of the aluminum foil-wrapped (I want to say chicken here, so yummy) rolls have a kind of plastic-y powder on them. Does anyone know if the 60's aluminum foils were coated with something like a thin plastic layer? I don't think foils of today have anything on them, but maybe the early foils did?

Ray