what to do?

I finally finished sorting thru my boxes of goodies from my retired coin
dealer father. These are the coins that were stored in the attic for 25+
years, and some had damage, remember?
Anyway, there were some nice Colombian sets stored in those plastic snap-loc
things, lined with foam on the bottom- well you guessed it- the foam has
crumbled and is now all over the coins, stuck so that plain water will not
remove it. Is there anything I can use to remove it? I was thinking of
getting this stuff called Koin-Solv, is it safe? The coins are (or were)
unc, some silver, some copper. Also I have some silver coins that must of
had a reaction with the foam, and are now toned BLUE, can I do anything with
these smurf coins?

Barbara

barbara beardsley wrote:

I finally finished sorting thru my boxes of goodies from my retired coin
dealer father. These are the coins that were stored in the attic for 25+
years, and some had damage, remember?
Anyway, there were some nice Colombian sets stored in those plastic snap-loc
things, lined with foam on the bottom- well you guessed it- the foam has
crumbled and is now all over the coins, stuck so that plain water will not
remove it. Is there anything I can use to remove it? I was thinking of
getting this stuff called Koin-Solv, is it safe? The coins are (or were)
unc, some silver, some copper. Also I have some silver coins that must of
had a reaction with the foam, and are now toned BLUE, can I do anything with
these smurf coins?

Barbara



Take the coins with the junk stuck to them and soak them in a WELL
VENTILATED area in acetone. You can purchase acetone at any hardware store.
Now on to the smurf coins ..... send me some images and I'll try to buy
them.


--
Jason Craton ---- CONECA N-3407 --- WINS #5
---------------------------
Interested in error coins?
http://www.error-coins.com - A work in progress (lack of progress really).

Nick is a DICK!
Reid is a troglodyte!
"note.boy" is an IDIOT!

Soaking the coins in some acetone should do the trick. Do it outside though.
The blue toned coins will be of interest to the "toned" coin collectors.

"barbara beardsley" wrote in message
news:CQP%c.3324$2H5.2797@trndny07...
I finally finished sorting thru my boxes of goodies from my retired coin
dealer father. These are the coins that were stored in the attic for 25+
years, and some had damage, remember?
Anyway, there were some nice Colombian sets stored in those plastic
snap-loc
things, lined with foam on the bottom- well you guessed it- the foam has
crumbled and is now all over the coins, stuck so that plain water will not
remove it. Is there anything I can use to remove it? I was thinking of
getting this stuff called Koin-Solv, is it safe? The coins are (or were)
unc, some silver, some copper. Also I have some silver coins that must of
had a reaction with the foam, and are now toned BLUE, can I do anything
with
these smurf coins?

Barbara

I'll parrot everyone else, but throw in the following:

#1. Get pure acetone (available at your favorite hardware store), not
fingernail polish remover. Soak just enough to loosen the gunk, rinse in
distilled water, pat lightly with a soft dry cloth to dry (optional) or lay
flat on a soft dry cloth to air dry (preferred). DO NOT RUB!

#2. If any of the coins have a higher value than common dates, consider
sending them to NCS (personally, I'm leary of dipping anything myself).

As for the "Smurf coins," blue toning is kind of cool. You should be able to
sell those fairly easily (Jason's interested). :-)

Jerry

"barbara beardsley" wrote in message
news:CQP%c.3324$2H5.2797@trndny07...
I finally finished sorting thru my boxes of goodies from my retired coin
dealer father. These are the coins that were stored in the attic for 25+
years, and some had damage, remember?
Anyway, there were some nice Colombian sets stored in those plastic
snap-loc
things, lined with foam on the bottom- well you guessed it- the foam has
crumbled and is now all over the coins, stuck so that plain water will not
remove it. Is there anything I can use to remove it? I was thinking of
getting this stuff called Koin-Solv, is it safe? The coins are (or were)
unc, some silver, some copper. Also I have some silver coins that must of
had a reaction with the foam, and are now toned BLUE, can I do anything
with
these smurf coins?

Barbara

"barbara beardsley" wrote in message
news:CQP%c.3324$2H5.2797@trndny07...
I finally finished sorting thru my boxes of goodies from my retired coin
dealer father. These are the coins that were stored in the attic for 25+
years, and some had damage, remember?
Anyway, there were some nice Colombian sets stored in those plastic
snap-loc
things, lined with foam on the bottom- well you guessed it- the foam has
crumbled and is now all over the coins, stuck so that plain water will not
remove it. Is there anything I can use to remove it? I was thinking of
getting this stuff called Koin-Solv, is it safe? The coins are (or were)
unc, some silver, some copper. Also I have some silver coins that must of
had a reaction with the foam, and are now toned BLUE, can I do anything
with
these smurf coins?

Barbara

I have some clad spanish coins that were stored on top of some foam that got
rotten like that. I used Ketone, which is stronger than acetone, but all it
did was remove the crumbs of foam stuck on them but still left some black
spots burned right into the surface. Once the surface gets spots like that
they are pretty much toast. I could take some 3M Auto Body Finsih
Restorer--a small bottle is 10 bucks--and that stuff will remove the spots
but then I'm left with AU cleaned coins instead of MS coins with black spots
on them.
The silver should turn out ok if you dip those. They'll look like they were
dipped though. The copper is a problem though. Instead of the copper looking
like they have some dirt chunks on them they'll look like copper that used
to have some dirt stuck to them that someone cleaned off and they'll get a
pinkish-orange look that is an unmistakable sign of a cleaned copper coin.
Someone here once said to use 100% lemon juice. I tried that on a silver and
a clad coin and it worked great on those but copper turned that funky
cleaned-looking color.