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rolling pennies
- Thread starter ellis
- Start date
Frank in NH
Active member
n/t
Bob (OHIO)
New member
I use a vibrator type (tumbler for cleaning rifle and pistol shells)---Fill it about half with coins and toss a couple hand full of the sharp white silica sand in,seal it up and let it run for a couple hours.They ain't pretty when they come out but most of the dirt and chunky stuff is gone.Put them in a coffee or paint can,run some water in and shake them hard for a min.,just to wash the dust off. Bob
James N.D.
New member
Just make sure that you seperate the Pennies from the Nickels, Dimes, Quarters and Clad Halves if you found any. If you Tumble the Pennies with the other Clad, all the Clad will turn Red. It will depend on how bad the Nickels, Dimes and Quarters are but they should clean up pretty well. The really bad ones that are Red from sitting in Wet Ground will come out looking Red and a few of the others also. You will need to Tumble these longer to get rid of some of the Redness. Reason for that is the Copper Content in the Dimes and Quarters. If you have any questions about a Tumbler and how to use it, contact Rick(ND). He knows what he's doing when he Tumbles Coins. Good Luck and HH.
I call it recycling coins we find in the ground, so we are doing our part in recycling and more profitable then most.
Use a rotatory tumbler for new coins and I use some aquarium gravel I get at any pet store or Wallmart. separate the pennies from the rest of the new coins and put some in the tumbler add the gravel untill it covers them well the add some real lemon juice(probably around 1/16th of a cup) then ad water to cover it all up and tumble for a hour to hour and a half and dump them in a strainer so the pennies will separate from the gravel and wash off the coins and air dry. These will look real good and some as good as new. Now clad you do the same thing, but run a good 2 hours or more and in some cases I will dump and rinse and pick out the cleaned one and the tough ones I will run for a hour or so and shut it off and let then soak over night and then run for 2 hours again. I also been doing something different with the tough clad as I will tumble them for a hour in my lemon juice to get most of the dirt off then dump and rinse and re tumble again, but use a little muratic acid, but be careful with it and tumble for a hour and rinse and put back in the tumbler with the lemon juice for 15 minutes to a hour to make sure all the acid is off. These will look very good when done with most like new and a few a little red tint to them. I think the last bunch of coins James brought me was over $175 and had them cleaned in less then a day.
Here is some of the pennies I did [attachment 110944 pennies.jpg]
Here is some clad before cleaning [attachment 110945 clad.jpg]
Here is the clad after cleaning with lemon juice and water in my tumbler [attachment 110946 clad2.jpg]
Use a rotatory tumbler for new coins and I use some aquarium gravel I get at any pet store or Wallmart. separate the pennies from the rest of the new coins and put some in the tumbler add the gravel untill it covers them well the add some real lemon juice(probably around 1/16th of a cup) then ad water to cover it all up and tumble for a hour to hour and a half and dump them in a strainer so the pennies will separate from the gravel and wash off the coins and air dry. These will look real good and some as good as new. Now clad you do the same thing, but run a good 2 hours or more and in some cases I will dump and rinse and pick out the cleaned one and the tough ones I will run for a hour or so and shut it off and let then soak over night and then run for 2 hours again. I also been doing something different with the tough clad as I will tumble them for a hour in my lemon juice to get most of the dirt off then dump and rinse and re tumble again, but use a little muratic acid, but be careful with it and tumble for a hour and rinse and put back in the tumbler with the lemon juice for 15 minutes to a hour to make sure all the acid is off. These will look very good when done with most like new and a few a little red tint to them. I think the last bunch of coins James brought me was over $175 and had them cleaned in less then a day.
Here is some of the pennies I did [attachment 110944 pennies.jpg]
Here is some clad before cleaning [attachment 110945 clad.jpg]
Here is the clad after cleaning with lemon juice and water in my tumbler [attachment 110946 clad2.jpg]
James N.D.
New member
Yeah....I have a bunch more Clad for you to clean up this year and will be bringing it out to the Club Meeting on Friday. If I'm right Rick, I will have well over $200 in Clad this year so we will have to wait and see. Thanks for the info Rick and I hope you made a few finds during the month for the upcoming meeting. Good Luck and HH.
I had to open an account at the bank with the free counter, but it was worth it. Super easy, and I don't lose money like I would if I used CoinStar. I even throw the chewed up zinc pennies in the machine. I figure every one it takes, I'm ahead a penny. The rejected ones I toss into a bucket in the basement.
Soap and water, and a little aquarium gravel work fine to get the dirt off using a rock tumbler. Separate the pennies from the other coins, otherwise they will turn pink. An old collander to rinse everything off, pick out the gravel to use again, dump out on newspaper or an old towel to dry and then off to the bank.
The Chicago rock tumbler from Harbor Freight is good. People complain about the belts, but that's because they don't adjust the tension like you are supposed to and then they break. With the tension properly adjusted, the belts last a long time. I also have a cheaper tumbler that is smaller that I have been using for 5 years plus with no problems at all.
Soap and water, and a little aquarium gravel work fine to get the dirt off using a rock tumbler. Separate the pennies from the other coins, otherwise they will turn pink. An old collander to rinse everything off, pick out the gravel to use again, dump out on newspaper or an old towel to dry and then off to the bank.
The Chicago rock tumbler from Harbor Freight is good. People complain about the belts, but that's because they don't adjust the tension like you are supposed to and then they break. With the tension properly adjusted, the belts last a long time. I also have a cheaper tumbler that is smaller that I have been using for 5 years plus with no problems at all.
I finally picked up a tumbler (5 weeks after ordering from HF. 
) and have now gone through all the denominations of clad (already have them separated--though I'll stop doing that now). With one iteration, the pennies seem to clean up much quicker with an addition of lemon juice and dishwashing detergent than do the nickels, dimes, and quarters. Any suggestion for an additive change for those?
) and have now gone through all the denominations of clad (already have them separated--though I'll stop doing that now). With one iteration, the pennies seem to clean up much quicker with an addition of lemon juice and dishwashing detergent than do the nickels, dimes, and quarters. Any suggestion for an additive change for those?The Clad seems to take longer to clean and what i use to do was run them for a couple hours, then drain and rinse them off , take out the good ones and put the bad ones back and tumble again for a few hours with the lemon juice. I have even let them sit over night to soak and run again for a couple of hours which takes care of most of them. Now I run them the 2 hours, take out the good ones and then instead of lemon juice I use a little bit of muratic acid run for a hour, rinse and drain and put them right back in the tumble for about 1/2 hour to wash off the acid or they will start turning blue looking. You just got to be very carefull if you use acid and only on the clad as I dont think you would want to get a new zinc penny in with it as they could be a reaction to the zinc in it.
I just got James I will be cleaning and with luck I will have some pictures in a couple of days. The weight of his new coins was a little over 25 pounds and for this I am going to use my 25 pound tumbler as I rinsed them off with only 2 loads so it will make it easier to pick out the clad from the pennies.
I just got James I will be cleaning and with luck I will have some pictures in a couple of days. The weight of his new coins was a little over 25 pounds and for this I am going to use my 25 pound tumbler as I rinsed them off with only 2 loads so it will make it easier to pick out the clad from the pennies.
Hi Jerry,
Good to hear from you, been a while. This big tumbler I got off E Bay I believe and was brand new on a Buy it Now and think it was around $160 for it. It a
THUMLER'S TUMBLER MODEL B ROCK POLISHER TUMBLER and I thought it was a 25 pound one, but wonder now it if it is a 15 pound one when looked on E Bay.
Good to hear from you, been a while. This big tumbler I got off E Bay I believe and was brand new on a Buy it Now and think it was around $160 for it. It a
THUMLER'S TUMBLER MODEL B ROCK POLISHER TUMBLER and I thought it was a 25 pound one, but wonder now it if it is a 15 pound one when looked on E Bay.