Advice on that funky smell.

[towards2112]

As the family knows, I have a pechant for hoarding pennies. $50 mint bags
are no strangers to my family as requests for birthday presents. Yes, and I
am in my late 50's.
I was given a leather antique sachel full of wheaties that are a beautiful
chocolate brown from the 30's and 40's. But the smell is absolutely unbearable.
I have no idea how to describe it. It gets on my hands, and I have gone as
far as spraying bleache on my hands to remove the smell.
Has anyone else experienced this ?

[Maineman750]

You can rinse the cents in acetone without any harmful effects....but no I've never run into that...sounds funky

[GrumpyEd]

I know that smell, you get it of you spend a day sorting circulated wheats. I sort on a newspaper and after a day the paper is dirty and smelly too.

I've known people that boiled cents in stuff but I think it's not good, it changes the color plus then you have a pot that you'll never want to put food in. Also any extra step is another dose of gunk on your hands.

Best advice is wash your hands every few hours and don't eat potato chips while sorting LOL!

If you sort fresh red modern clean cents then you'll appreciate how clean they are.

Welcome, you'll have fun here

[jfines69]

Febreeze Sounds (SMELLS) like the bag may have gotten damp over its lifetime... Like Maineman said acetone bath should help!!!

[rarecollectibles]

I received a small leather change purse with some large cents in it that belonged to my grandfather. The coins has some verdigris and an oily feel along with the funky smell.
I am guessing moisture as jfines69 said or possibly some kind of conditioner used on the leather complicating the problem. Possibly because you have a larger bag and most coins were not touching the leather, you have smell but nothing else.
I agree that an acetone bath should solve the smell problem.

[BadThad]

Acetone would be pretty expensive, I'd just rinse them with a gallon of distilled water, leave them to dry on some newspaper and put them into a ziplock.

I suspect most of the odor is coming from the old holder.

[towards2112]

Well, the solution was taken out of my hands by my wife. After my complaining about the nasty
smell, she appears to have solved the problem for me. She filled the sink with hot water and added
a bit of dish washing liquid and poured the lot into a plastic collander and let them soak for a
couple of hours. She said that she rolled them around a few times then rinsed them and poured them
out on a bathtowel to dry. When I got home they were dry and didn't smell. It would seem like a
lot of other OCD collectors I always want to go for the rocket scientist solution. Now if I can get
her to sort the years for me....

[Maineman750]

I always want to go for the rocket scientist solution..

Well, we were giving you solutions that would not harm the value of your coins....dish soap is not one of them.

[enamel7]

I hope there wasn't anything valuable in those!

[jallengomez]

I could go all sorts of directions with the title of this one, but mods and all.