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Troubled by 'Cleaning Coins' on Coin website....

DoubleEagle59DoubleEagle59 Posts: 8,431 ✭✭✭✭✭
Surfing the 'coin' internet and came across a fairly good website on silver coins (actually I was looking up some info on the 1804 silver dollar and that's how I found this website).

I was aghastimage when I read his webpage on 'cleaning silver coins'

Here's the link:

Text
"Gold is money, and nothing else" (JP Morgan, 1912)

"“Those who sacrifice liberty for security/safety deserve neither.“(Benjamin Franklin)

"I only golf on days that end in 'Y'" (DE59)

Comments

  • I've heard of using lemon juice but I don't know if it can cause any harm.
  • ConnecticoinConnecticoin Posts: 13,272 ✭✭✭✭✭
    BAD, BAD, BAD.


  • << <i>BAD, BAD, BAD. >>



    image

    Dipping is best left to the pros at NCS - they ruin coins for a business.
  • Atleast they did say that:

    "At last we like to give you a good advice and this is good to know before cleaning. If you are intending to sell your silver coins, do not clean them as potential buyers will give you more for it when it's brown or black by this natural process !! In other words, a brown or black silver coin is more worth then a coin that has been cleaned the wrong way or just to much cleaned !!"

    They do warn that it can devalue coins.
    "One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making new discoveries" -A.A. Milne
  • adamlaneusadamlaneus Posts: 6,969 ✭✭✭
    If that is good advice to know before cleaning a coin, it's a shame that the advice comes at the end of the article.

    I'm not down with the brush scrubby stuff either.

    I have heard of various techniques to clean up ancient coins and I believe the article seems to have an ancient coin focus.
    I've got a few ancient coins. I cannot imagine wrecking them.


    I have a visual aid:

    image

  • Wow........they left out Comet Cleanser...image
  • astroratastrorat Posts: 9,221 ✭✭✭✭✭


    << <i>I've heard of using lemon juice but I don't know if it can cause any harm. >>



    Yes, lemon juice will harm a coin's surface. It is acidic with a pH of about 2.3 which is slightly more acidic than vinegar (acetic acid) at pH 2.4.

    Lane
    Numismatist Ordinaire
    See http://www.doubledimes.com for a free online reference for US twenty-cent pieces
  • YaHaYaHa Posts: 4,220
    I heard Breast Milk. It's warm, natural and tangy. The warm Tangyness is the cause of the cleaning.

    But bewarned later you might have milk spots appear on your coins so please don't slab. There is no cure for thisimage

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