Distilled water soaks work!

I should’ve done a before and after, but there’s a specific coin 1992 20 Shillingi Tanzania, that had tape on it and had been colored an almost orange. Here are some photos of its change. It became apparent early on that it could only hang out with coins that were in really poor condition. I couldn’t believe how much came off! It’s still soaking. I’ll show another in a couple days.

 

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Don't you risk contamination of your other coins when you soak coins together rather than individually?

 

Yes, there’s a risk. Except for that one coin, most of them had minor issues, or none at all and I just wanted to give a small soak before putting them in 2x2s. I have way too many coins to soak them one by one...

 

Thanks for the prompt reply.

 

So with distilled water, since whatever comes off the coins is water soluble, as long as these are properly rinsed afterwards (I use slow warm water and then one last dip in brand new distilled water to clear any particles off) it should be okay. I would not say the same for acetone.

 

I just completed an acetone bath on a 1952 quarter and it came out with the same gem like luster minus the green stuff that was showing being totally eliminated. I have good results with copper coins in distilled water

 

I got into ancients in the early 2000's through the uncleaned lots and step #1 was soak in distilled water and changing it every few days. I had coins soaking for months. But it worked

 

Perhaps this isn’t a brilliant question..... Are there properties in the distilled water that are more effective than tap water? Or is it that tap water contains its own contaminants that we want our coins to avoid?

 

Distilled water is "more pure" then regular water. It's usually made by evaporation process.

 

Not really, unless your tap water is a red brown stream of water you wouldn't drink. Some have a lot of dissolved minerals , but my Colorado river ( near the end) has it filtered and treated and the yearly report by the city is very good. Fresh out of the ground water is heavily loaded with minerals. I suppose it makes some sense that the coins have been in the ground and the reactions occurred between the coin and the soil chemicals with water as the reactant solution. In water for a few minutes, yes, but not long enough to start reactions. Almost all organic based oils are possible reactants over time. I very seldom use oil, but I use 'synthetic clock oil" I have for my clock collection, never any reaction , but expensive as most clock stuff is. IMO,Jim

 

Use Badthad's chemicals, they have worked for me and no problems. He is a member here.
Jim

 

This is very interesting. I wonder if distilled water is similar to reverse osmosis produced water.
Basically unfiltered tap water is full of all kinds of stuff. Tap water is pretty much already saturated with different things and isn't desperate to strip anymore molecules into itself. There's dissolved rock in it. The city chlorinates it to kill bacteria. They often add calcium and fluoride to it. There may be dissolved lead in it. Dissolved meds. They add phosphates to keep the pipes clean. Copper. Some towns have problems with arsnic in it. Well water has nitrates in it. Straight out of the tap you drink all that.
Depending on your location and city vs. country the total of all these dissolved solids vary greatly from location to location. Here the TDS out of the tap is about 280 ppm. That's the total of everything in it. There's no way to break it down individually without sending off for analysis. Based on the color of my sediment filter after a year I'd say a lot of it is dissolved rock and rust. The water comes out very clear but it's not clean.

The next city over might be at 400+. The higher the TDS the harder it is for your body to process it to hydrate you. Some towns in the southwest are at 600+ It can get pretty high. The EPA does not recommend drinking anything over 600 TDS.
So basically yeah, tap water is dirty and this is why it leaves spots and can't be used alone to clean off a coin.

An RO unit (1950s technology) strips it down to about 10 TDS. If you add a DI resin it can clean it up to 0 TDS. Which is close to what distilled water will be I suppose. When you get down to pure hydrogen and oxygen molecules it becomes reactive/corrosive. Pure water wants to strip the molecules out of metal and will rust stuff. Somebody more intelligent than me would have to explain why this happens. But this is why you'd want to rinse with RO or distilled to leave for an air dry. There's technically nothing left in it to deposit as residue once it air dries.

Only reason I'm aware of this is I used to keep a reef tank. I currently keep an RO unit for drinking and cooking water. Would never be without one again. Occasionally use it for clean rinses on things. Haven't tried using it on a coin.

 

The "proper order" is 1) Distilled water, 2) Acetone, 3) Xylene, ...?

 

Then acetone then water.

 

These coins just keep bleeding this orange gunk. I wonder if there’s an end to it?

I switched them to the other side of the container. Still more coming.

 

I question this idea. Unless the water is so flat-out salty or sugary that it interferes with your electrolyte balance, I'm not seeing how mineral content is going to interfere with hydration -- except, of course, that if the water tastes bad, you won't drink enough.

For coins, though, hard or gunky water leaves spots when it dries, and chlorinated or salty water can actually corrode them. Distilled water is guaranteed not to carry damaging or dusty impurities.

 

I can't speak for understanding the hydrating part but I'm sure its easier for your organs to not have to process out dissolved rock. You can't see it in the water. You may even question if it's there. But my 25 micron sediment filter will go from pure white to brown in a couple months. It's totally caked in a year. That's on city water...
I've been drinking RO water for years. There's a place that has a natural spring that people flock to, to get free, "pure water" for drinking. I took a big drink of it one time. Completely dried my mouth out. Was very weird. Guessing a ton of dissolved rock in the pure spring water. Drinking pure water will make your sense of taste much more sensitive to where you can taste when fountain pop is "off" from I assume the water used at a particular location. Sometimes it's really bad.