/diy/ - Do It Yourself

>>2782674
Yeah you fucked up. Carefully removing some dirt is fine. Soaking them in acid removes the patina and corrodes the surface. If they were anything of value, you now likely reduced that to the scrap value of the metal.

lol why do people keep doing this?
a collector doesn't want a coin from the 1800's to be nice and shiny...

OP never use chemicals on old coins
You can salvage them by using a wire wheel on a grinder. Be gentle

>>2782704
>lol why do people keep doing this?
...Because almost everything else in existence gets more valuable when it's in good or 'like new' condition?

I never claimed to be smart.

>>2782706
Will that clean the layer of copper off the 'stained' coins? Luckily, only a few of them are made of copper, so I probably didn't damage anything too valuable. From what little research I've done, none of them are super rare or valuable - they're just foreign.

My biggest fear is fucking up the silver ones from the 1800's. I've been real gentle with those.

>>2782721
Yes wire wheel is your friend

>>2782706
>>2782724
this is why you don't take advice from the internet

Ultrasonic jewelry cleaner?

>>2782674
Put a spoon of baking soda in your palm with a couple drops of water and rub coin in past. It won’t scratch. You probably shouldn’t do more than that unless you just really wanna.

>>2782749
these work quite well, I use mine for tools and small gun parts too. sounds awful while its running though.

People in the comments acting like OP ruined a bunch of Dinary Drachma from 300BC or something. It was probably a handful of wheat pennies and maybe some silver quarters or something

>>2783058
>NOOOOOOO! You just lost up to $2.14 worth of value by cleaning those coins!

Put a dab of ketchup or hot sauce on them and leave for about 10 minutes

>>2783068
>>2782749
both are corrosive

>>2783081
Yes, that's the point. OP has already ruined them and they probably weren't that valuable in the first place. Either of them will take off all the crud and leave the detail unless just left on there

>>2782706
>>2782724
kek

>>2783081
Pretty sure an ultrasonic cleaning machine isn't corrosive...

>>2783126
It definitely is. If you have one throw a wadded up ball of aluminum foil into it and see what happens

>>2783157
holes are from cavitation though

WOW you guys were right they look amazing
It removed the staining after the vinegar bath.
I suggest wearing gloves since im now trying to remove a wire in my finger

>>2783176
>no guard
I don't want to sound like a pussy, but you really should have guards on a wire wheel.

>>2783184
Bullshit…obviously youve never had to use one as much as i have. I temove the guards on everything asap

>>2783162
what do you think does the cleaning? its a reductive process.

Use water vapour plasma. Does not damage the coin at all, does not heat the coin, is incapable of etching the metal if you use a kHz plasma generator instead of MHz

This reminds me of the story of the Arab sheik or prince who had a massive collection of American silver coins. He spent a bunch of time cleaning them and getting them perfectly shiny. Some numismatic expert had to tell him they were effectively worthless after that aside from melt value.

>>2782674
>Did I fuck everything up?
yes

>>2783176
>he wire wheeled his coins
at that point just drill holes through them and use them as washers, you absolute retard

>>2784763
That wasn't me, that was some other Anon.

Anyway, I do have some good news: My sheer ineptitude has saved me the same way it betrayed me. Because I don't know what I'm doing, none of my coins wound up shiny. In fact, a lot of them are somehow dirtier than when I started, covered in water marks and random copper patches. Even some of the copper ones are somehow as dark and dull as they'd have been just sitting under the couch cushion for 12 years.

Out of roughly 100 coins, only about a dozen of them are fucked - mostly from some weird discoloration that I don't understand because they have that sort of rainbow tint to them, like when you heat metal up to several hundred degrees.

Crisis averted, maybe? I can post pics later if anybody wants to see how much I fucked up multiple times over.

>>2784790
>I can post pics later if anybody wants to see how much I fucked up multiple times over.
I'd rather see pics or descriptions that identify what you have. It's surprising to me how inexpensive some old coins are. On the other hand pic related is 107 years old, worn all to hell, but still asking $54.

>>2784793
and then there's this coin about 1600 years old for $15.61

>>2784794

and finally, $18.9 million for this one

>>2784793
>>2784794
>>2784795
In this hobby there are 90yo boomer who started when they were 9 so old stuff isn't really worth as much you would think. The real expense stuff are misprint coins they werent striked properly and say "in goy we trust" or have half the strike zone missing.

>>2784981
>In this hobby there are 90yo boomer

I'm not quite that old, but when I was a kid in the 60s you would see quite a few steel pennies from WW2 still in circulation, which I thought was cool.

>>2785002
Recently seen a guy on cl selling 13 5gallon buckets full of steel pennies forv12k

You find a 43 copper penny….chaching

>>2784793
Okay, I can get the whole set later when I'm not working. For now, here's the biggest casualties.

I also have one of the ones in your pic, as well as a silver version of >>2784795.

>>2785388
A better version of that weird octagonal one. I have no idea why it's colored that way.

>>2785388
Well, good news is that it doesnt look like theres anything valuable there to begin with :P

>>2782674
>He fucked it all up
Never clean your antique coins

>>2783230
If the ultrasonic cleaner is removing parts of the coin, those parts were already gone. Distilled water isn't going to be dissolving metal any time soon.