Years ago I organized a bunch of worthless foreign coins into an album sorted by country. I didn't put all of the coins in 2 x 2 holders and instead, I cut a bunch of coin flips into two and put coins in them and then into the album. Needless to say, many coin dealers will put loose coins in a vinyl flip when one purchases them and I have noticed many also placed in the flips while in a dealer's inventory. It is a disgrace to the hobby when they use such flips that ruin rather than protect coins. Needless to say, Many of these worthless foreign coins became PVC damaged.
PVC is the component that makes the vinyl flips soft. Some flips are a little more rigid as they lack PVC and are safer to store coins in. Over time, a coin stored in a vinyl flip will develop an ugly green film, mainly on the high points of the coin where the most contact is made with the flip. The PVC will continue to eat away at the metal.
Coins with PVC damage on them will not be certified by PCGS or NGC. Acetone can remove the PVC but if the coin has been stored for a sufficient amount of time that the metal corrodes substantially then even acetone will not correct the damage and the coin will still not certify. Light PVC damage can be corrected by acetone and the coin can be fine.
Of course dealers being irresponsible by using PVC flips is not the only thing that I have seen them do that I would not advise. I was at a coin show once and saw a currency dealer who had plenty of high grade and expensive varieties of certified obsolete notes. He was using binder clips to mount them on a display board so that people can look at them. Now he's damaged the currency. Even though they were certified, the currency holders are not thick and durable like the coin holders so he would put dents in both the holders and the notes.
I would advise people to ask the dealers why they use vinyl flips or do something irresponsible with the money they sell. If they don't take good care of numismatic items while they are in their possession then why would one want to purchase the item, knowing that they could be damaged?
Nevertheless, I filled a glass container with the damaged coins and poured acetone on them. I then removed them and set them on a microfiber cloth while the acetone rapidly evaporated. Since I put all the coins in the container, there remains some PVC damage on some of the coins as they didn't sit long enough in the acetone. These will have to be re-acetoned. The nice thing about doing so was that the acetone turned a nice blue which resembled copper sulfate in solution.
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