Should I clean those "darn coins" or not????

[beachguy777]

Man I hate this part of metal detecting. You go out and bust your butt finding some cool coins, at least we hope, but when you get em home they look like He_ _.! So what do you do? Ok now, gee I thought I was a pretty smart guy. I'll just go on the internet and find out how to clean coins. You guys ever done that? Almost, to my surprise, they all say don't do it. Honestly I'm not too surprised because I used to collect coins when I was younger and you could still find them in your spare change, the good ones I mean, but now that I'm "old and decrepid" I have to go buy a metal detector to find the old stuff, but even when I was younger they told me, don't touch those coins with baking soda or brass cleaner or anything cause it'll ruin em. I guess they're right, but how in the world do you get some of the crap off these bad boys without ruining the look and value of the coins???
Ok, so I put together an electric zapper dealy, you know where it boils the coin in salt water, but ding dong here gets impatient and sticks both hands in the water while the thing's still turned on. You know that takes brilliance, (man what a jolt, it seemed) even though it was low voltage, I could really feel it. Well, the electrolysis method seems to work great but it turns my pennys pink colored, also the quarters and dimes and nickels. What's a ding dong to do here???. Ok, now I admit I havn't tried the olive oil, but will that really clean off the built up patina and massive crud that gets on these burried coins? Help, help, help. I need guidence, even though I've only found two wheatback pennys so far, I'm still hopeful.

 

[Sand Shagger (NMB)]

I suggest http://harborfreight.com, then search Key word "Tumbler".

 

[Rick(ND)]

On all the new coins we want to just take to the bank or spend we like to clean them. Now the older wheaties, older nickles and silver is where you may want to just clean them in water and some mild soap. On the new coins I will tumble these in a rock tumbler with some aquarium gravel, water and a good shot of "real Lemon juice" I get at Sams club for $5 for 2 of the 1 1/2 quart bottles, so I get 3 quarts for $5 and it will last a long time. I will seperate the copper from the clad as they have to be tumbled seperate. I will put in around 1/3 full of coins, add the gravel until it is about 3/4 full, then add water untill it is over the gravel and add a good shot of lemon juice( about 1/8 of a cup) Tumble the pennies for about a hour, the rinse them off and let dry with most looking like new. Now the clad I have to tumble longer for around 2 hours and will dump them out and look at them to see which one are good as some will be better than others. I will put the bad ones back in again and add more water and lemon juice and tumble for a hour again and leave them sit soaking over nite or even for 5 or 6 hours and turn back on for another hour and then take them out and rinse them off. You may still see a few bad one and some will be real nice too, but even the bad one will still be good enough to spend or cash in.
I built a strainer I use out of a 5 quart ice cream bucket and a half gallon one. The half gallon one I drill some big hole in it so the water and gravel will fall though and the coins will stay in this container. This will sit in the 5 quart bucket I sit in the sink which I have drilled a lot of small holes so the water will run out, but the gravel will stay in the 5 quart bucket. Now I just sit the whole thing in the kitchen sink and turn on the water above it and dump my the contents of the tumbler in it and then pick up the half gallon one and shake it while water is running in it. The coins will all stay in this container while most all the gravel will fall though as there may be a few bigger pieces that wont go though the holes. I dump the coins on a towel and let air dry while the water is running out of the 5 quart bucket. Now all the gravel is in the 5 quart bucket and ready to use again. I have a place where I can set my 5 quart bucket on the edge of the sink, but many dont so maybe it would be wise to have another bucket with no hole in it to set the 5 quart in so the little water that is still in the gravel can drain out.
Been using this for years and I know I have cleaned many coin for others around here and done demos for our club to show how nice this works on coins you want to spend or take to the back for the paper money.

Rick

 

[beachguy777]

Thankyou Rick, that sounds like a great way to do the newer coins instead of that "one at a time deal on the electrolysis thing I was doing. I need to get me a tumbler and I'm gonna copy your forum letter cause there's good detailed info there. Thanks again. Marc Trainor.

 

[beachguy777]

Here's a response to my own post. It sure looks like I need to buy a tumbler for the modern coins, looks like the only way to fly, but what about the "oldies"? I'm still in kind of a quandry about all that, you know, to rub a dub with baking soda or olive oil, etc. or not??. I'm reading a lot of stuff about different methods and I happend to stumble on one on a site called Minelab Explorer XS users. There's a section on the site about cleaning copper and silver that looked pretty interesting. On the copper they're taking a crock pot and putting peroxide in it, heating it up and dropping the copper wheeties in there, maybe one at a time, in their case, but they kind of boil it for 5 or 10 minutes, then take it out and scrape it gently with a wet tooth pick to get the patina off. After that the guy puts a little bees wax on it and at lest the "after" picture looks pretty good. Still a little hard to tell just from the picture but it still has that dark brown color which I thought the real coin guys always wanted. Take a look at it if you're interested and please give me any feedback. As far as the silver, he took an old silver dime and did the electrolysis method in a bowel with some backing soda, (I think it was baking soda) instead of salt in the water. Boy it cleaned it up pretty good. I hope not too good to turn off the coin collecters. That always seems to be the issue. If you get em too clean they look a little phony, I guess.