What, you may ask, is captured in this terrible, overexposed, inscrutable photo? That is a pressed penny, happily soaking in a jar of turpentine, where it has been all day. All. Day. The paint has not budged.

I knew I was brilliant , but THIS SHIT DOES NOT COME OFF!

Back when first started painted my pennies, I made some *ahem* unfortunate color choices, and I wanted to clean them and reuse the pennies. Salt and lemon juice? Nice and shiny. Nail polish remover? Nope. Freaking Turpentine? Ha.*

It's a solvent, right? The only other thing I can think is to buff the paint off, which will scratch up the copper. Maybe I'll have an "Antiquity" line in my shop, where they're all beaten to hell and ancient looking. Harrumph.

*The reason that this is a Friends Only post is that I DO NOT recommend you do any of these things to your poor pennies. At the very least, such treatment will dull the finish on your paint, and I'm trying to strip this one totally, not clean it. I was just shocked at how tough it really is--a gentle rub with baking soda toothpaste every once in a while or a clean polishing cloth will do just fine.

::::::::::GUINEA PIG UPDATE:::::::::::
Somewhere between hour 15 and 24, the turpentine finally started to eat through the clear bonding agent that holds the mica pigment together. There was a little color change before I went to bed, and then this morning--with a fairly rough salt scrub--the paint finally started to come off. Success!
So it isn't indestructible, after all. But I am Extremely Pleased to know that the paint won't just wipe off if you have a freak accident in the painting studio and drop one into a bucket of turpentine;)

*******UPDATE UPDATE********
Okay, I don't know which small god of alchemy is laughing at me right now, but last night, I put some more pennies in the turpentine--you know, just to see. As of 4pm today, I reiterate THIS SHIT DOES NOT COME OFF. I don't know if the first penny was a fluke, or it has something to do with the different pigments, but every coin I tried to clean today looks like the day I painted it. Again, Harrumph.