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Tips for cleaning mint set haze.
cladking
Posts: 28,339 ✭✭✭✭✭
I've been using mostly 91% isopropyl alcohol but it is very time consuming and ineffective for large percentages of clads. I've been experimenting with using amonia but it seems to strip too much luster from the coins.
Any suggestions?
Tempus fugit.
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Weak jewel luster H2O mix has worked well for me.
No problem when submitting to PCGS.
I'd try ms70 before acid based stuff.
Have you tried acetone yet?
I'd try ms70 before acid based stuff
E-Z-Est is acidic, MS70 is alkaline, so it's really sort of the same from a potential damaging aspect. I think that what will work the best is what fivecents suggested, a weak solution of perhaps 50-50 E-Z-Est and distilled water followed by a rinse in the 91% alcohol to neutralize the acid.
Acetone works for a lot of them but it's tedious and cumbersome. I'm really looking for something that's much faster and preferably easier and cheaper. It would be nice if it worked on most of them.
The best I've found so far is a mixture of about 25% acetone and most of the rest isopropyl.
How weak?
Does it work quickly?
I assume this is similar to Jewelluster?
I need a process for the silver clad, cents, nickels and clad.
I have used EZzest at a 50/50 dilution with distilled water and then submitted and received grades....rinsed in pure distilled water and blow dry.
The E-Z-Est is only about $40 a gallon in quantity so might be doable.
I have done this before. I mix about 1 part dip to about 6-7 parts water. Quick dip, rinse in alcohol, distilled water.
If the haze is deep you may have to dip again.
Then the wife's hair dryer.
It's time consuming and cumbersome, and I have to do it when my wife isn't home because she freaks out when she smells the dip or any remnants of it.
It's a lot of work and if you are doing a quantity of coins, it will take a while.
I know there is probably a better way but this is what I have come up with.
It seems to work on halves, quarters and dimes better than it does for nickels.
Just call Rachel!
Mix a small amount of industrial ammonia with no surfactants (Ace Hardware) in a glass dish with distilled water. Dip coin in for no more than a second. Rinse thoroughly in a large container of distilled water. Then rinse in another container of distilled water and finally a third. Place coin in a shallow glass dish filled with acetone. Swish around in acetone and then rinse in another container of acetone, dry with a hair dryer. Finally a quick dip in another container of acetone with another blast of the hair dryer. Place on a glass surface for a few hours to let it re-hydrate.
You want your final water baths to be as pure as possible before the coin goes into the acetone and the acetone baths as pure as possible before drying.
Process best done in large batches. This will remove all haze and will prevent brown water spots from forming even on proofs.
Doctors giving up their secrets?
Thank you Thevolcanogod. This is exactly what I'm looking for.
By "small amount" of amonia, I'm guessing it's usually going to be less 1%. I'm also guessing that this technique won't really work for about a third of the worst ones.
Welcome aboard.
A lot of people just don't realize how many of the moderns are going to need TLC to get them looking decent.
I'll be trying it.
Thanks. Yea use as little as possible - like a splash in a ramekin filled with distilled water. The haze should come off fairly easily. If you use only a little bit you can check the haze and keep it in there even a bit longer - just have a good light source available. Nickel and silver are fairly resistant to ammonia (they use it in waste management systems because of this) so it takes a lot more exposure to ruin a coin than Ezest. I've ruined far more coins with Ezest than ammonia and I've pretty much stopped using it.
Copper proofs are the most tricky to work with - anything more than a quick dip will turn them a characteristic pink color. Also if they are already toned, this will strip the haze but will turn the brown toned copper a purple-cherry red.
Most important thing is to keep water out of your acetone. It will contaminate it and leave droplets on the coin surfaces which can leave spots when it dries. I keep one hand rinsing the coins in water after the dip with a nitrile glove. Then I transfer it to the other hand before placing in acetone. Use a bare hand with acetone - you will contaminate it with skin oils but acetone will breach and dissolve most anything including nitrile and its best not to deposit that on the surfaces.
Good luck - I've been able to save quite a few "ruined" proofs that are hazed up but come out like mirrors after.
Was wondering just how long it would take to see this as a response!!! Grab some toothpaste (works like a charm, what with the grit in the paste), some vinegar.....lol
@thevolcanogod...Welcome aboard....Good process, very similar to ones I have used. And copper can really be messed up quick... Cheers, RickO
Thanks for the additional information. I'll mostly be doing Uncs which should be a lot easier.
I think I'll probably try a soak in 91% alcohol and then only try the ones this doesn't help. One of the biggest problems with my current method is that there are too many batches going at once.
If you use alcohol or acetone on clad you have to be very careful to keep water levels low in long soaks or the coins will develop carbon spots. When water starts getting up over 20% due to evaporation or contamination then this starts becoming a problem.
I'll report back after I get a little experience here.
Thanks - long time reader - love all the info here - have learned so much over the years.
Diluted MS70 in distilled water ( about 10% MS70) has always been my goto for clads. Rinse w/ pure distilled water afterwards.
Most post that I read here will work.
The most important point is the rinse.
reread the above statement.
I was going to say that the doctors are in.....
If time/ simplicity/ and results are important, MS-70 is the only thing to use. Must be rinsed off with hot soapy water and then distilled and dried. Try it, you'll like it.
I've been really concerned recently about how many of the mint set coins are damaged by the mint set haze and that there already are so few even without losing 80 or 90% of them to this problem. So I've been experimenting and early results are fairly promising. It is apparently pretty important to use the right ammonia which is that without surfactants as Thevolcanogod described. It appears early results suggest about 1 1/2 teaspoons per 2 cups of water.
The percentage being saved isn't high (60%) but the coins look pretty good after cleaning.
Does it have to be distilled water? I am hoping regular water that has been professionally steamed first might work.
LOL! What exactly is professionally steamed water?? I've never heard the term.
And yes Cladking, never use any of the "cloudy" ammonias.
The pot can't be aluminum and probably not even copper coated.
Does this work on hazy proof coins too? I'm thinking silver as well as clad 60's and 70's stuff.
Insert witicism here. [ xxx ]
What ...fivecents said.Make sure you rinse well.
Sorry about dropping the ball on this thread but I've obviously still got a lot to learn.
I don't know but I'd guess that it's important to use distilled on the proofs. I've been doing Uncs with no discernable problem... ...yet. I'm sure the point of using distilled water is to not have particles in it that will cause spots on the coins.
Dealers are using it.
Apparently this works best on proof coins and for the very heavy mint set haze is less effective. I'm going to be trying a lot more things and will try to report back but if you get the solution rich enough for the heavy haze on mint set coins it will strip the surfaces.
My next experimenting will be longer soaks in very weak solutions.
I fear a lot of the mint sets are going to be unrecoverable. This is concentrated in a few of the early dates that were already in very short supply.
What a shame! People just ignored these coins for too long.
thats all well and good but how if they are mint set coins how do you store them after all this now that they are out of the plastic ?
I've been putting the ones that look good in rolls. I know this works OK because I knew many years ago that some coins were susceptible to this damage so I removed them and cleaned them in acetone. There will be very very few of some of these coins like the 1968-P cent that are still pristine. Unfortunately it looks like the number of more important coins like 1969 quarters is going to be severely impacted. These coins are still being unceremoniously dumped into circulation after being ripped from mint sets despite the fact most of the mint sets are gone now and few have been set aside. Now, the coins in plastic are mostly unrecoverable meaning that even the few set aside aren't pristine.
I used to talk about how there were only 100,000 or so nice choice '69 quarters but now it looks like there won't even be quite this many that are pristine and most of them will be in no way choice. Every day dozens more are lost to the haze or to circulation because collector demand isn't protecting them.
Lightly hazed coins clean up fairly good but the heavily hazed and mottled ones have a lot lower success rate and are labor intensive to clean. I use a mixture of denatured alcohol, isopropyl alcohol, and acetone on these and soak them for days and then repeat the process for bad ones. After three attempts I use the ammonia in increasing concentration. They'll all come out "clean" eventually but after a dip in very strong ammonia most will appear cleaned so are no good.
I was wondering if they were going in 2x2's . I'm just curious because I used to buy up silver mint sets and break them up but you need to break up a lot of sets to get solid date rolls. On the one hand there is some level of interest in solid date rolls , on the other hand it could take decades if you are doing a range of years and mint marks
I put Gems and PL's in 2 x 2's and everything else in rolls. Of course there's probably no point in saving bad coins so as many as the worst 60% just go into circulation and the rest in bank boxes. Some of these come nice and stay nice and some come awful and then corrode. Then there is everything in between.
Similar to cladking, I have noticed the surface damage to these mint set coins and it is infuriating to see otherwise nice coins that have what might be described as an immovable layer of something on them or that might be ever so slightly pitted. I have been saving the nicest pieces myself as mixed-date rolls and I may have ten rolls put away. I have found that folks who broke the sets up early and placed the coins in Dansco albums did a nice service for us because these coins remained much nicer. As for the 1969 WQ, I may have a roll or two of them saved, as well.
In honor of the memory of Cpl. Michael E. Thompson
You can try extra virgin olive oil because it causes the least damage, but it can take a long time. Anything like a vinegar that is acid will eat into a jiyu Aluminum coin.