I recently found a box of old coins that I had forgotten about. I got them as a present quite a few years ago from my great-grandmother, and I didn’t pay much attention to them at the time. However, I have noticed that she sorted many of them out by glueing them to paper and writing the dates under the coin. I know this is bad, so I was wondering if anyone has any suggestions for safely cleaning off the dried glue and paper bits?
There are a large number of pennies, and an assortment of various foreign coins, so what is safe for one type of coin may not be safe for another, but that is just my amateur guess.
thanks!
I’ve made my living(such as it is) for about 30 years now in the coin biz. We always tell people NOT to clean coins. And here’s the reason.
If you have a rare coin, worth perhaps $1000 dollars because it is a scarce one and the condition is almost perfect, an amateur could reduce the coins value by much more than half by even slightly scratching the coin in the process of cleaning. If your coin were a common one, you would drop the value by a negligible amount.
From the description of the coins your grandmother left you, you should soak them for a few hours in warm water. If the glue is water-based, it will come off. And the water won’t hurt the coins. If the glue isn’'t water based, you may have to soak in acetone(clear fingernail polish remover). You can usually get acetone from a good drug store or hardware store.
My guess is, the coins have little value. At least, most of them. So cleaning them may not hurt.
If the coins are loaded with paper and glue they don’t have a lot of collector value so you can’t lose much by trying a soak in water with a detergent. She might have used water soluable adhesive.
How careless of me! I didn’t read all the way through samclem’s post. In the imortal words of the mayor’s daughter in The Music Man, Eeee Gods!