A
Anonymous
Guest
I have never cleaned silver coins with anything but soap and water. In the 40 years of the hobby I have found two 1916D dimes and when I sold them they were looked at under a microscope. Even the soap and water and just a gentle cleaning with my fingers had left very tiny scratches on them.
This is a personal opinion but I would not clean silver or gold coins or valuable jewelry. Once you find gold jewelry you can tell "high quality" by the quality of the gold. They don't normally put good stones in gold or fake stones in gold. The silver we want is marked although some early silver did not have the marking. The beautiful dark green should never be removed from copper coins. Sticking a penny into a potato and leaving them for several days can clean less valuable copper. Nickels take a beating and very few have much value so they can be cleaned with a solution that most coin dealers have. There is also one that will bring the date back out one such as a buffalo nickel as those dates were on high area of the coin and wore off pretty quickly. Clad coin can be cleaned with a dishwasher, rock tumbler, anyway that does the job as they only have the face value.
I have found a few coins that had a very nice value such as the two 1916D dimes and a 2 1/2 dollar gold piece. Most of the more valuable items however have been jewelry. That is one reason why I don't like to use discrimination past iron. The rings and other jewelry have added up to several thousands of dollars. You can sell the gold, as you know, with no problem if it is the kind that individualizes such as a class ring. The other jewelry can be sold but I don't think you should clean it but let buyer do that.
You gain nothing from cleaning coins or jewelry but it can really cut down it's value!
Cody
This is a personal opinion but I would not clean silver or gold coins or valuable jewelry. Once you find gold jewelry you can tell "high quality" by the quality of the gold. They don't normally put good stones in gold or fake stones in gold. The silver we want is marked although some early silver did not have the marking. The beautiful dark green should never be removed from copper coins. Sticking a penny into a potato and leaving them for several days can clean less valuable copper. Nickels take a beating and very few have much value so they can be cleaned with a solution that most coin dealers have. There is also one that will bring the date back out one such as a buffalo nickel as those dates were on high area of the coin and wore off pretty quickly. Clad coin can be cleaned with a dishwasher, rock tumbler, anyway that does the job as they only have the face value.
I have found a few coins that had a very nice value such as the two 1916D dimes and a 2 1/2 dollar gold piece. Most of the more valuable items however have been jewelry. That is one reason why I don't like to use discrimination past iron. The rings and other jewelry have added up to several thousands of dollars. You can sell the gold, as you know, with no problem if it is the kind that individualizes such as a class ring. The other jewelry can be sold but I don't think you should clean it but let buyer do that.
You gain nothing from cleaning coins or jewelry but it can really cut down it's value!
Cody
"> I come to these forums mostly to have fun, but do like to learn a thing or two in the process. I guess you are unable to tell the difference. Glad to see it is your last post on the subject because you are the one who would rather go off topic than support what you had to say.