Coin Storage

[wygold]

I'm looking for advice on storing coins without a SDB or home safe. I have some mint proof sets and they are starting to show oxidation and I don't want the other mint sets or my other more expensive coins to start oxidation either. I also picked up a handful of those little white packets that you see in merchandise and I'm not sure if that's good enough.

Thanks

[cpm9ball]

The most important thing you need to do is maintain a cool, dry environment. Heat and humidity are the worst enemies of coins.

 

You can get the rechargeable silica gel canisters from JP's Corner......

 

http://www.jpscorner.com/silica-gel-humidity-control.html

 

Chris

[Conder101]

The silica gel is the way to go but it works best if you can create a micro-environment. Most toning is an oxidation-reduction reaction that requires moisture to proceed. The gel removes the moisture for the air around your coins, but it doesn't do a lot of good if more moist air can simply move in. Get some tight sealing plastic storage bins or tupperware type bins. Large zip-lock type storage bags too. What you want is protection in depth.

 

Put your coins in the ziplock bag with a silica gel packet (they can be in boxes, albums, what ever). The gel will remove the moisture and since it can remove the moisture from a much larger volume than what is in the bag it will do a great job. Now the bag is not completely air tight but it will reduce the air transfer by better than 95% so it will be a LONG time before the gel needs rechargeing. If you double bag it you can reduce air transfer down to less than .2% and you will probably never need to recharge the gel as long as the bags remain closed. If you work with the coins from time to time you will have to recharge the gel.

 

Then put the bags of coins into the tupperware type storage container and put more silica gel packages in there with the bags. You now have a tight dry micro-environment that should keep the coins from turning for decades or hundreds of years. If you want to examine or work with a particular group of coins you can without disturbing the environment around the others. The gel in the tupperware will have to be recharged from time to time, the gel in the bags much less often and if you don't open the bags maybe never.

[PerryHall]

Good advice given here. SDB's in bank vaults are usually in a humid environment to protect paper documents such as wills, deeds, titles, etc and is not the best environment for copper and silver coins. Sealed bags or Tupperware containers used with silica gel is definitely the way to go.

[bsshog40]

I live in N. E. Tx by Louisiana. Very humid here in the summer. I have just a common shelf type cabinet that you buy from walmart. Laminated particle board. I keep a few small packets of silica in it. The house stays pretty closed up also and I haven't had any issues with oxidation.