Why Olive Oil to clean?

[JccEldreth]

Is there any difference between olive oil and vegetable oil to clean up a coin?
Thanks,

 

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[Beezly]

Vegetable oil isnt great in my experience, turns coins very dark. Olive oil isn't much better. For pennies I've been trying lemon juice and if you time it right it makes them bright. I forgot how long I left my first attempt in juice, maybe an hour. I've messed it up a few times since and they look aweful, but it works well if timed right. Any other clad coins lemon juice doesn't work. Aquachigger has a good youtube video on how he cleans coins and how he also ruins them.

 

[BoundToSteel]

On one of the Hoover Boys videos he bought a $15 pen that was made to take the place of a toothpick.

 

[boogeyman]

Instead of lemon juice use Citric acid. Faster and more controllable. I've been using it for years mostly in my ultrasonic cleaner. I've found since it's faster it's easier to not forget you got something cooking and smoking your find. You can order it from spice dealers or from suppliers of home brewing equipment. Not expensive and the spice dealers can give you anything from 1lb up to 50 or 100lb bags. If your copper or brass find comes out too bright & shiney try using liver of sulphur about 1/3rd the concentration recommended. OH!!!!! if you try liver of sulphur believe em when they say use it outside!!

 

[umbantmer]

I personally do not see any big diffrence ;d

 

[Jason in Enid]

stop using olive oil to clean coins, its completely useless and is more likely to cause further harm than clean anything.

 

[ironhorse]

stop using olive oil to clean coins, its completely useless and is more likely to cause further harm than clean anything.

Hey y'all !

Listen to this guy! He's 100% correct

This is the last word that should be said about this

 

[SCdigger]

1) olive oil cleaning takes forever
2) olive oil darkens the coin or button severely
3) olive oil is organic and the residue, over time, can actually develop/grow bacteria, fungus or mold.

I clean with hot hydrogen peroxide soak and a cue tip.

Just my two cents worth...from experience.

SCdigger

 

[digger27]

Never really use it on coins, however on this pretty rare bronze merchant token it worked better than well.

When I found this I thought it was a rusted knockout plug.
It was crusted over with a hard cement like covering which is what happens to some targets that spend a lot of time in my red Alabama clay.
I almost threw it away but brought it home instead and used a green scrubby on it until I saw just a few letters show through.
Still had no idea what it was but I threw it in my tumbler and kept checking on it until I got most of the heavy crust off and that took awhile.
Then I attacked it with a scrubby again until I got it to the point of the first two pics.
That black residue was stubborn, no scrubbing would get it off so I decided to try olive oil.
Soaked it in a baggie with the corner filled with that oil for many weeks, months actually, took a toothpick and picked at it every once in awhile till I got into what you see in the second pics...then I stopped.

Still one of my most cherished finds because, one, it is big as a half dollar fairly rare, has a date and I was able to track the history back on it and even found a pic of the store that issued them.
And two, because I worked like heck on the thing for a long time to get it presentable.
It came a long way and the olive oil definitely helped...over time.

 

[huntsman53]

The answer to your question is that Extra Virgin Olive Oil has enough acidity to it to clean dirt, some of the encrustations and some verdigris from Copper coins. Although they may loosen some dirt and encrustation on Copper coins, Vegetable Oil and Mineral Oil virtually do nothing other than protect them from further decay.


Frank

 

[Kurios1]

Your patience resulted in a very cool and presentable token there. Not going to debate how to clean coins. To each there own but, your method seemed to work very well just slow as he!!

 

[fistfulladirt]

The dangers of olive oil

https://finds.org.uk/counties/merseyside/the-dangers-of-olive-oil/

 

[JccEldreth]

The dangers of olive oil

https://finds.org.uk/counties/merseyside/the-dangers-of-olive-oil/

Enough said, Thank you ! I will not be doing it again.

 

[against the wind]

Olive oil is much better than vegetable oil, especially if you have high cholesterol. Olive oil also has a better taste than vegetable or mineral oil.

 

[FreeBirdTim]

I've had some good luck cleaning IHC's using a combo of a warm hydrogen peroxide bath and mineral oil. The hydrogen peroxide gets off most of the crud and then dipping the coin in mineral oil helps to loosen up any crud that's left over.

The big positive with mineral oil is that it doesn't contain fat. Olive oil contains fat, which can eventually putrefy on a coin.

 

[NWMP]

I found one of those "General Mite" dwarf tokens. I soaked it in olive oil over winter and was able to flake most of the corrosion off. The olive oil also left it dark as midnight.
The Spade Guinea Advertising Token | johnwinter.net

 

[digger27]

Your patience resulted in a very cool and presentable token there. Not going to debate how to clean coins. To each there own but, your method seemed to work very well just slow as he!!

Yep, not recommending this method for any coins at all or anything else but in this case, on this token it worked spectacularly well.

 

[fistfulladirt]

Yep, not recommending this method for any coins at all or anything else but in this case, on this token it worked spectacularly well.

Agreed, the cleaning came out great. Now, the oil must be neutralized in some way to prevent the future damage from the fatty acids contained in olive oil.

 

[ironhorse]

Olive oil is much better than vegetable oil, especially if you have high cholesterol. Olive oil also has a better taste than vegetable or mineral oil.

yes, it only makes the coins taste better

 

[NOLA_Ken]

I might catch some flak here, but I cleaned up my saloon token by running through hot peroxide a few times and then short soaks in Louisiana hot sauce. (insert joke about people from Louisiana putting hot sauce on EVERYTHING here) It worked really well and I'm happy with the finished product.

Before :


After :


What this will work on and how good it will work on other things I don't know, I do know it takes tarnish off of copper pennies though.