mapper65
Member
Hello everyone, in my area I've found a decent amount of war nickels 1942-1945. As many of us know, they are 35% silver. Occasionally they will come out of the ground fairly clean but usually not as nice as a 90% silver coin.
I can't take full credit for this because I kind of combined what people had told me and what I had read online in order to come up with something that I feel works pretty well to clean up war nickels.
I have an old NyQuill cup that I fill up nearly 3/4 of the way with bottled lemon juice and I add just a little olive oil. Once or twice a day over usually no more than 2 to 3 days I turn the nickel with a toothpick. Sometimes you can get it to stand up on it's side and you don't need to move it around very often but this concoction can be very slippery and it won't always stand up well.
Once you have waited the 2 to 3 days you can usually then take a toothbrush and what grime hasn't fallen off can usually be brushed off very easily. Sometimes you may need to put it back in an extra day. You'll usually notice that your yellow liquid starts to turn green as it's working. Surprisingly even areas that appeared pitted or had large black spots just dissolve away.
On this one that I found on Saturday, I couldn't find the toothbrush that I normally use but instead used a harder plastic bristled scrub brush. You will notice some fine scratches but nothing major. The toothbrush usually leaves no scratches. This particular nickel had some sort of red marks on it that I've never seen before and some white scaling on that back that both can still be seen lightly on the coin. You will notice that the coin usually ends up with less shine, kind of hazy looking but pretty much a night and day difference from when you pulled it out of the ground.
I'm sure there are other methods but I thought I would pass this along.
I can't take full credit for this because I kind of combined what people had told me and what I had read online in order to come up with something that I feel works pretty well to clean up war nickels.
I have an old NyQuill cup that I fill up nearly 3/4 of the way with bottled lemon juice and I add just a little olive oil. Once or twice a day over usually no more than 2 to 3 days I turn the nickel with a toothpick. Sometimes you can get it to stand up on it's side and you don't need to move it around very often but this concoction can be very slippery and it won't always stand up well.
Once you have waited the 2 to 3 days you can usually then take a toothbrush and what grime hasn't fallen off can usually be brushed off very easily. Sometimes you may need to put it back in an extra day. You'll usually notice that your yellow liquid starts to turn green as it's working. Surprisingly even areas that appeared pitted or had large black spots just dissolve away.
On this one that I found on Saturday, I couldn't find the toothbrush that I normally use but instead used a harder plastic bristled scrub brush. You will notice some fine scratches but nothing major. The toothbrush usually leaves no scratches. This particular nickel had some sort of red marks on it that I've never seen before and some white scaling on that back that both can still be seen lightly on the coin. You will notice that the coin usually ends up with less shine, kind of hazy looking but pretty much a night and day difference from when you pulled it out of the ground.
I'm sure there are other methods but I thought I would pass this along.
