Skip to bottom if you want straight to the question. Last year my wife got me a nice wood display to hold state quarters. The display is about 2ftx3ft and hangs on the wall. It has each state individually cut out and holds a coin, then around the edge it has a place for 50 more which I show the reverse. Anyway, each time the front door slams, or house shakes a coin falls out of its hole, until now I have about 50 or 100 down at the bottom. Since the spot for the coins are directly cut into wood there is no "give" to apply a little pressure around the rim of the coin, they either hold or they don't. thanks for reading. QUESTION: Is there a product that will stick a coin in a wood display and will not marr the coins so they will not fall out when it hangs and the wall? I am a novice and thought there might be a product you can place on back, maybe pitch some out of can and roll into a little booger on back to hold coin with no ill effects. Just needs to barely stick like sticky notes glue. Thanks for your help.
Welcome to the forum Hurricane. Any substance ( even if inert to the coin metal) would seal the part contacted away from the normal environment such as moisture and corrosive gases in the atmosphere, so after a period of time , if the substance was removed, the metal beneath might appear different than the rest of the coin. So that is the problem. If however the beauty of the display is more important, then this http://www.amazon.com/Quakehold-33111-Museum-Gel-Clear/dp/B0002V37XY/ref=pd_sim_hi_1 with a tiny amount on the rim of the coin should hold it in place. I don't use for coins, but it is holding a great many plates and ceramic /glass objects on open shelves. This gel substance is also found as "dots" or tiny squares in some 99 cent store, or Hardware stores. Actually contact with wood is usually also a no-no for coins that may be valuable as most woods and varnishes can damage coins, so you will probably hear from some purists who think any coin must be preserved. So with this in mind, the gel may not be too inhibiting. As a woodworker also, I might think that if the holes were drilled with a common device, that you could have a "plastics man" cut some circular pieces of thin lexan the exact size of the hole, and use the gel on it rather than the coin, but that might be way more expensive than the cost of replacement coins later Jim
Get a thin piece of clear plastic or glass that fits inside and use adhesives to keep it in place, but keep the adhesives off the coins. I would just glue it at the edges, where the adhesive will not be directly visible, but it'll still be in there tight enough to keep the coins from falling out.
Go to the hardware store and get a piece of glass cut the correct size to lay over the entire face of the wood. If the coins are recessed flush or beyond, the glass can lay flat against the wood and hold them in their holes. That way you can secure the glass to the wood itself, and not the coins. Most hardware stores can cut you some nice clear glass for cheap.
Thanks desertgem that is the kind of stuff I had in my mind. I never thought about the problem with sealing off the back from the environment. It is a nice state quarter display full of 100 uncirculated coins. having a nice looking display is probably worth more than the value in the coins. 200 years from now the state quarters will probably be worth less than they are today. Anyway my new idea is to press the coins into the holes with a piece of tissue paper behind. It may tighten up around the rim just enough, may protect the coin from the wood/varnish, and then I can trim off clean where it may look like a nice edge. May also look like a bunch of sheshe. thanks for the other ideas, I appreciate them but they will not work for this application. Keep the ideas coming.
