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I’m curious about using plastic pill bottles for long-term storage of coins.

I don’t plan on storing any Uncirculated coins or truly valuable stuff. But, I’m curious about storing things such as the following:

Large Cents
Indian Head cents
Buffalo nickels
War nickels
Silver dimes, quarters, halves and dollars

Anyone have any rolls they can check to make sure they don’t have any unusual discoloration or film on them?

I have used them over the years for both short term storage and medium term storage (4-5 years). I report no problems at all. In fact, before responding to this thread, I looked at large foreign coins that have been in six inch pill bottles for 3-5 years. Again, no problems or issues. These coins vary in condition, but none of them are uncirculated.

Here's a few ideas for those looking to experiment. Bottles must be washed/cleaned and then air dried. Then inspected (briefly) before used. Coins with low to modest value apply here. Some examples to experiment with are:

40's and 50's wheat pennies
NO DATE buffalo nickels
King George VI pennies
Large common foreign coins such as Mexican pesos, Jamaican halves, British pennies in lower grade (ie. Fair to fine). If you outgrow these bottles, then move to a larger container (glass? Wood? Plastic? Cardboard? - we have a thread for that.

I think the only one you'll need to worry about is bottles with a recycling code of 3 (PVC), but I don't think any pill bottles would be made from that. I'm moderately certain that codes 1 (PET), 2 (HDPE), and 5 (PP) are all inert, and should be groovy for coin storage. 4 (LDPE) should be inert too, but I think it might degrade/oxidize faster and become brittle sooner than the others. If I had to guess, I'd say 5 (PP) would be the best, as I believe it's somewhat similar to Mylar. That's the type of plastic most prescription bottles (the brownish shaded ones) are made of.