how do you clean a V nickle

[Waterdog]

I found a 1910 V nickle the other day. I wanted to clean it up but need advise on how to do this. Thanks in advance

 

[Tom_in_CA]

Naval jelly cleans v-nickels. It's a rust cleaner. And the slight iron content in the makeup of nickels, is what gives them the orange-ish/red color, afterall. You can get naval jelly at hardware stores, etc.... Soak (hours or days), rub with terry towel, and repeat as needed.

 

[MNCoinhunter]

Naval jelly cleans v-nickels. It's a rust cleaner. And the slight iron content in the makeup of nickels, is what gives them the orange-ish/red color, afterall. You can get naval jelly at hardware stores, etc.... Soak (hours or days), rub with terry towel, and repeat as needed.

Will it work on pennies too?

 

[Tom_in_CA]

No.

Pennies do not have the same composition that nickels have. Somehow, the 25% "nickel" ingredient/composition of nickels, allows them to get a rusty iron-like orange color to themm that we're all familiar with on dug nickels. Copper pennies, on the other hand, get a different kind of corrosion (not the same orange-ish red that nickels get).

Naval jelly, on the other hand, won't hurt pennies, it just does nothing to help them. Sometimes though, if I have a penny that's been sitting next to an iron nail, so that it had the rust mark of where the nail was, I will use naval jelly to remove that rust spot. But for the rest of the penny, no, it doesn't do them any good. Just nickels.

 

[Eric in RI]

I take my old nickels and put them in ketchup. I let it sit for about an hour, then I remove it, rinse off the nickel and rub some baking soda on the nickel with my fingers, then rinse again.

Works every time. Try it on an old jefferson nickel first to see if you like what it does.