Any alternative preservation techniques to lacquering copper?

[shirohniichan]

I drove my wife's minivan on Sunday and noticed a number of cents covered in melted crayons in a change holder. When I peeled off the dark green wax from some of them, they looked bight red.

 

Do copper collectors wax their coins or apply something other than lacquer to keep them from toning?

[MikeInFL]

Application of lacquer was common for a long time, and it wasn't limited to copper. I have never heard of wax being used in this fashion, but even today copper specialists often us a layer of an oil to protect the surfaces. Blue-ribbon and Care are two examples of oil-based preservatives commonly used by copper collectors...>Mike

[Conder101]

Yes wax has been used as a preservative for copper, both by collectors and by museums. there is even a special formulation that is used by th professionals, I forget the name of it. (I think it is called Renaissance Wax.) It has the advantage of a low melting point so it could be removed eaisily. and the last traces were easly disolved by acetone. So the coin could be returned to th original pre-waxed condition if desired.

 

But wax was often used not so much as a preserver so much as a means of filling in porosity on the surface of the coin to make the surfaces look smoother than they really are, and so used to cheat a collector by getting him to pay problem free money for a problem coin. For that reason wax is frowned upon.

[physics-fan3.14]

Would an application of wax remove surface contaminants such as verdigris from a coin? If you were to apply some wax or something and then remove it, would the verdigris stick to the wax? I've never heard of this sort of thing, just throwing ideas out.

[MikeInFL]

Thank you (again) for the education, Conder!

[lkenefic]

very cool...very informative post!

 

L

[Conder101]

No it won't do anything about verdigris. All the wax does is act as a sealant to prevent air and moisture from getting to the coin, and as a filling material that makes porous or rough surfaces less noticeable. So on the one hand it acts as a preservative, and on the other as a method of doctoring to make the coin appear better than it really is. But any damage, corrosion, or corrosion byproducts are still there.

[halfpint]

I drove my wife's minivan on Sunday and noticed a number of cents covered in melted crayons in a change holder. When I peeled off the dark green wax from some of them, they looked bight red.

 

Do copper collectors wax their coins or apply something other than lacquer to keep them from toning?

 

 

i once new a collector that did something a little more extreme. he used to coat his coins with clear epoxy! now that may have made them bullet proof but i'm not sure who would want them if he went to sell?

[shirohniichan]

But wax was often used not so much as a preserver so much as a means of filling in porosity on the surface of the coin to make the surfaces look smoother than they really are, and so used to cheat a collector by getting him to pay problem free money for a problem coin. For that reason wax is frowned upon.

 

I reckon I won't be covering red copper in parafin wax or melted crayons on purpose, then. I guess I could always keep them in a tube with mineral oil.