How to clean 999 gold coins?
 

Like Kangaroos?

they had some finger prints on them. I put some water in a bown and shook them around in it, careful not to scrub them, and to dry them, I just put them on a napkin, again, careful not to dry them with a moving motion as the super soft 999 stuff is very easy to scratch, even with a napkin.

That resulted in some improvement, but still not perfect.

How does everyone else take of this issue?

Re: How to clean 999 gold coins?
 

Cotton balls and alcohol?

Re: How to clean 999 gold coins?
 

acetone is great for removing fingerprints from Ag. Have you tried it on gold?

Re: How to clean 999 gold coins?
 

TomD,

Cotton Balls and Alcohol worked great on these 9999 Kangaroos.

I found out that if you handle a coin at all, even very carefully by the edges, eventually it won't look the way it came in the plastic round holder. This applies to any coin actually. Gold Eagles and Krugerrands also.

Acetone is an interesting idea. I have lots of it. Can anyone confirm/deny that it can work on 999 and 22K gold?

Re: How to clean 999 gold coins?
 

Off topic for gold coinage, but apparently vinegar is another thing to try on on silver coins. But the coins shown are ancient and in really bad condition. A different category from having a few grease stains on 22K Eagles.

http://rg.ancients.info/guide/cleaning.html

Re: How to clean 999 gold coins?
 

Also, I can share how not to clean them - some years ago, when I didn't know much about how to handle coins, I cleaned some ASE and even a Krugerrand with Brasso. That stuff for cleaning brass, chrome, aluminum even, things like faucets.

Well, they came out very shiny! Even the Krugerrand, which was from 1970's, did. I was surprised how much oxidation was removed. It went from being that dark orange to very shiny yellow, but then within weeks, lost that shine and went half way to the condition it came from.

Don't use brasso, I think it removes some metal, especially if your scrub that ASE like a brass faucet. :)

I just picked up a 91 ASE that I cleaned the brasso and all of the shine is gone and it looks like the non-cleaned ones... but I would think a 10x lense would reveal more scratches.


Back to 999 gold - looking at these Australian Kangaroos after alcohol + cotton ball treatment, they reveal lots of hairline scratches. Lesson here: If you take them out from their protective holders, they will get scratched. Same goes for Canadian Maples.