Cleaning Old Coins,

[SeanHM]

How are you guys cleaning your old coins ?

Sean

 

[Tom_in_CA]

With sandpaper, or a bench-grinder. If you don't have either of these, then try this: get some two-sided tape, and tape the coin to the bottom of your car tire. Then drive around the block a few times. It'll shine that puppy right up!

 

[Shambler]

I think what Tom meant to say is whatever method you find to be best. 99% of coins that have been in the ground a while are near worthless (much beyond melt value) anyway - except to the person that found them of course. Put a 16X jewelers loop to a couple that have been in the ground vs. just circulated and you'll see what I mean. You might be able to offload them on eBay, but to anyone that knows coins, they'll be able to tell right away it was dug.

OR you can seach "Coin Cleaning" on this forum and you'll have a lot of opinions.

 

[Hotcz70]

I'm not a collector and have no interest in selling coins so I use some warm water and a light pinch of baking soda. It works miracles on giving new life to silver coins.

If you collect and resell I would not recommend cleaning coins in any way other than a warm water rinse because from what I've heard...you will ruin the value from a collectors standpoint.

Again though...for me...I couldn't care less because I am not a collector. I just like to find old stuff

On a super valuable old coin I might want to give to my daughter when I'm no longer here...then sure...I just leave it alone...but for other old silver I use a little baking soda and a very light rub in warm water.

If you are a collector and concerned about value and resale...then I would do nothing but a warm water rinse at the most.

 

[born2hunt]

What Bryce said. I'm not a collector, I'm a scavenger. I have no desire to sell my coins. I clean my silvers the same way but old coppers present a much bigger challenge and are often better off with a very light cleaning or none at all. Baking soda won't do anything for old coppers, just silvers.

 

[TokenDigger]

For silver coins, I just rinse clean them off with water and a little soap. I leave the tarnishing on since I don't want to devalue the coin; however, much of the silver found is only worth bullion value so cleaning with a little baking soda won't hurt it since it has no real collector value. I usually tumble my wheaties but first go through them in case there is a good date. If so, I just clean it with soap and water and will put a little CARE on it after it dries. You can get this stuff at a coin supply store or probably on line. I do this for any good copper I find (half cents, large cents, Indian Heads., etc.). Most of these coins aren't worth much either but I like to preserve the coin for history's sake.

 

[dewcon4414]

Seems we are all in agreement that our found coins will never get MS slab status. I use Bar keeps friend on the silver. I search thru them as well before deciding how to approach cleaning them. Large cents, flying eagles, and fattys can handle the tumbler and come out looking MUCH better than you would think. I did a show and tell the other day for our new club members on what a tumbler could do and even convinced some of the old digger. Darn wheats and IHs are the worth to deal with. Wheats to me arent worth much so i tumbler them and hope for the best. IHs ... well you have to look at them, you can tell which will handle a tumbler and which will desinigrate. Once i get them how i want the i put MINERAL OIL on them. Put a good coat... let it dry, then put a light coat on them and put them away. Works as good as even coin care i think and wont damage the coin.

Dew