I am visiting uncle Thiru shop Thiru's numismatic & handicraft in jalan persiaran raja muda musa, Port Klang on Saturday and caught him doing this thing to his coin collection. He is cutting some lime and squeeze their juices into a bowl. When I asked what exactly he is doing? He told me that he is cleaning his coin collection. He has been doing this for many years since he start collecting. I am asking him about his tips on doing coin cleaning with lime juices and here are some of what he told me that day for your knowledge. If you never cleaned your coin before, I advise you not to try them with your valuable coin.
This method of cleaning is just for coin with normal dirt, light haze, green spots or oily film. What you need is some lime (limau kasturi, limau purut or limau nipis) that you can buy from Malaysia wet market for below 10 ringgit per kilo. If you cannot find lime, you can also try lemon juices. Squeeze that lime juices into a bowl that you want to put your coin. You need to put your coin at for least two days. Just make sure you separate them according to their metallic content. I can see that Uncle Thiru separated the silver coin from the bronze coin in a different bowl. He told me never mix coins of different metal together or you will be having a problem later with the other coin metal stuck to other coins.
After two days, pick up that coin and clean them with soft cloth towel. Make sure you clean your hands with soap before you touch your coin. This is to make sure all the dirt that on your hands is not transferred to your coin. Never try to rub and scrub your coin. Just clean your coin gently using that soft cloth towel. After you clean them, soak them in a coconut oil base soap water for one day. Uncle Thiru's told me he get his coconut oil soap from Amway. After soaking your coin with soap water, rinse them with running tap water for 3 to 5 minutes. Then pat it dry with clean soft cloth towel, try not to do it with any rubbing motion that can scratch your coin.
For hard to clean dirt on your coin, you need to used other method. Some of the method suggested by Uncle Thiru is to soak that coin for 10 days in lime juices and then boil them with soap for one hour. Will try to take picture of this method next time. I am suggesting you that there is no need to clean your coin because it will make it devalue if you don't know how to do it. I am also not sure if Uncle Thiru method using lime is a good method for cleaning your coin. Before you want to try coin cleaning, please make sure you read this story that I pick from "Coin Collecting for dummies 2nd edition".
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Ron remembers the day a nicely dressed man in his mid-40s came into his coin shop with a complete set of peace dollars he wanted to sell. The man explained how his father had painstakingly built the collection over many years. He had inherited the coins after his father died. Now, many years later, he was curious to find out how much more valuable his coins had become.Before Ron opened the album, the man pointed out that some of the coins had become tarnished over the years, so he had cleaned them to make it easier for Ron to see what they looked like. Hearing that, Ron’s heart sank. Sure enough, when he opened up the album, Ron saw rows and rows of bright, shiny peace dollars. But, they were too bright and shiny; all were obviously scrubbed and cleaned. Once beautiful, high-grade coins, they were now pieces of junk worth a fraction of their former value. A very disappointed person left Ron’s store that day.
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