Cleaning Green Gunk / Verdigris

[Shazbot57]

I have about 8 pounds of light to heavy green gunk/verdigris copppers sorted from the others so they won't spread. They don't have any numi value so I wondered if anyone has a concise method for treating larger quantities not to make them "pretty" but just keep them from getting worse or spreading their "cancer". Verdicare or Verdigone wouldn't make sense for cheap coppers. I'll still keep them for the copper or sell them as ugly Abe's, but preventing the growth/spread seems like a good idea.

Suggestions?

[68Camaro]

Tinhorn has posted a number of times including very recently on his tumbling technique.

[johnbrickner]

Allow me to share a solution Doc shared with me when I asked about the same:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvGYfmbBYyg

[LooseChange]

Tinhorn has posted a number of times including very recently on his tumbling technique.

His most recent post on the topic.....Great Info:
viewtopic.php?f=21&t=28473

[tinhorn]

Tinhorn has posted a number of times including very recently on his tumbling technique.

I put together a pretty complicated process at a time when I was selling a lot of ".950 copper bullion" on eBay. It would be impractical to replicate my system to clean just a few pounds of coins.

But if you have access to a rock tumbler or cement mixer, there are a couple steps you could take. The trick is to remove the crud without affecting the patina. First you want to remove the green gunk, then you want to kill it. Tumbling the coins will remove the gunk. Acetone is said to kill it. But then you still have the problem of drying the pennies--air-dried pennies look horrible. If you have a cement mixer, you could tumble them with corn cob hamster bedding, or ground walnut shells (also available at pet stores), or a mixture. I never tried sawdust or non-clumping kitty litter, but those might work as well.

My own process coated them with carnauba wax the same way jelly beans are coated to make them shiny: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=10421#p105580

[Shazbot57]

Great info! I've been looking for a large used tumbler on craigslist but no luck so far. I have a small one from my daughter's childhood but it would only do small batches (a 1/2 pint to a pint) at a time. I'll keep looking for a bigger one or a "tinhorn double tumbler".

[tinhorn]

Consider using a pair of cement mixers from Harbor Freight--one for washing and one for drying. They'd pretty much be the equivalent, but with the added feature of easy dumping. Until you get the vibrating dry sluice you might want to stock up on some mesh baskets from Dollar Tree for separating the coins from the drying medium.