Cleaning Wheat Pennies...

[mj-air23]

I was wondering if anyone tried tumbling their wheat pennies to clean them and if they had any luck, or does it take the patina off them? Any thoughts.... Thanks! HH!!

 

[James N.D.]

if you tumble them for a short time, it shouldn't be that bad. Rick just did up Dale Sellner's Wheat's about 2 months ago and they turned out pretty good. So you may want to PM Rick(ND) and ask him about it. He knows what he used and for how long. I do know that Crushed Walnut Shells clean up Pennies really nice. Another of Rick's methods of cleaning Coins. I hope you are getting out and finding stuff for this month's meeting and if not, I hope the weather changes for the good so we all can make some finds before the meeting. Good Luck and HH.

 

[mj-air23]

I thought I read somewhere on here about someone who tumbled his wheats in hydogen peroxide and rice and they turned out very nice...Anyway, I managed to get out a couple of times so far, and picked up some wheats as well as a Barber dime and a Merc. I wish this crappy weather would just give up and go away!!

 

[Rick(ND)]

Mike,

I like to keep the wheat pennies looking natural if all possible, but some are so full of crud they cant be and some are so pitted there not much you can do.
What I have been using for the wheat's is my vibrating tumbler and use some of the same aquarium gravel I use in my rotating tumbler and add a little Awesome cleaner I get at the Dollar store for a buck. Now I will start my vibrating tumbler and add a little water until the pennies get a rotating action and run for 8 hours or more. Drain and wash them off the pennies and let dry. Now I will do the same thing and use crushed walnuts shells, but do this dry for 8 hours or so and take the walnuts shells out and replace with just water and run for a half hour or so to wash off the dust, rinse and dry. Now they will look like they were never in the ground and yet not over cleaned like the rotating tumbler will do.
Sounds like you James and Tim all have barber already, I still haven't found any silver yet, but been using the New Fisher F-75 and picking out good targets out of areas that have been hammered hard that have a lot of iron trash around.Hopefully I will have some old IH and some seated, well I can hope cant I??

 

[Chris(SoCenWI)]

I've found soaking copper coins in boiling hydrogen peroxide is the best cleaning method. You will need to wipe every one on a soft terry cloth to get off the dirt, sometimes you have to repeat several times. This method does leave the patina alone. I do this with most Indian heads and Semi-Key wheats, but for the masses of 44-Ds and such this is too tedious. So now tumble in Hydrogen Peroxide and use rice as a medium to help scrub/absorb the dirt.

Results:

[attachment 52888 2006Wheat.jpg]

The only down side to this method is that the rims get a little banged up from tumbling, same as would happen if you tumble with gravel or anything else. Also beware that this will build up pressure in your tumbler, need to keep burping it. I'm going to put a pneumatic swivel fitting in the center of my tumbler lid before using it next year.


If they are full of green crud or pitted there is really nothing you can do. I tried tumbling some really crappy IHs and ended up with some shiny really crappy IHs. I do tumble my nickles with gravel and they often turn out quite tolerable.

[attachment 52887 uglypennies.jpg]

Chris

 

[mj-air23]

I will have to give both cleaning methods a try. Chris, I knew somebody had posted the peroxide and rice before, thanks for that info. Thank you both for the help! HH and good luck Rick on getting some good finds.