Cleaning silver coins that has been thru a house fire

~MetalDigger~

Full Member
Oct 20, 2007
247
0
North Carolina
My friend has some silver coins that survived a fire when his home burnt a couple years ago. And they are black and smoked up. He's wanting to clean them up, and I dont think they are no really expesive ones, I know he has several silver dollars. And I'm shure he dont think he cares about the cleaning shorting the value, so how would be the best way to clean them Thanks guys.gals of tnet
 

Old Dog

Gold Member
May 22, 2007
5,860
397
Western Colorado
first fill a shallow bowl with 409 cleaner.
and just let he coins soak for a little while.

Rinse them well with hot water and let them air dry.
they really may not need more than that. If they do...
try another short soak in an acetone bath,
as you remove them one at a time, slosh the one being removed back and forth Gently.
This will act as a rinse.
Once again air dry.

Durring this whole process.
It is important to understand that there is absolutely NO RUBBING involved. NONE
There may be some porosity noticed in the surfaces of some of the coins as a side effect of the fire.
This will seriously change the value of the coin.

Others may have more drastic measures for cleaning.
I don't use many cleaning methods myself as the stuff can get caustic,
and I have a lot of traffic through my house.
So these two gentle methods work pretty well for most silver coins.

Hope they help you.
OD
 

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