Do you wear cotton gloves? 🧤

[Bimetallic]

No coin condoms for me. Takes away all the feeling... 😊

In general, I just wash my... hands, erm.

I guess I've actually gotten quite into hand washing since the pandemic started up. I've been vigorously washing my hands every time I return home from a trip to the market, or walking the dogs/checking the mail, etc. I've grown fond of vigorous hand washing. It feels good, and I probably should've washed my hands a lot more before the pandemic.

So now, whenever opening new (to me, not necessarily to the world) silver, I always wash up like a surgeon. It's natural now, low friction. I think I was also mindful initially of COVID risk from packages and the surfaces of the actual silver, banknotes, or world circulation coins. I collect all three, and was still ordering stuff from Europe well into the pandemic. I don't really worry about COVID much anymore, since I'm vaccinated, boosted, and never got infected anyway, but I stick with the hand washing.

The ultimate is probably thorough hand washing + cotton gloves, but the hand washing alone pretty much eliminates issues from handling. Sebum is the big contaminant coming from human hands and skin. It's the unique skin oil, really excellent lubricant actually. It's what banknotes are mostly contaminated with (along with cocaine...). Brief handling of coins with washed hands shouldn't do anything harmful. The sulfur in the air is the main issue with silver, so sealing off the air is the big thing.

For super precious coins, cotton gloves do help prevent subtle scratches from grains of sand on the skin and fingernails.

[365DaysofSilver]

*Update*
 

I still haven’t worn the gloves. I like to handle my bullion coins and bars.

However.. proof silver I don’t take out the capsules & if I want to take a closer look at it, I just remove one side of the capsule & still keep the coin in the other half, so it doesn’t touch my skin. 

I aim to hold my silver for the entirety of my life & potentially pass on to my children so a few grease marks etc won’t worry me, as by then (🤞🏻) the spot price would of increased so much that even to sell at spot would be a huge profit margin.