Tumbling and cleaning coins much faster....

[zeekeys]

Some people are trying to find a good way to clean coins better and faster. I ran across this video and tried it. It works pretty good but the coins come out tarnished. Here is the trick I tried and it works. Thanks John333 you saved me hours of tumbling time. I use the same tumbler as John and have been using it for years. All I did was add 2oz. of concentrated lemon juice to the vinegar and I used 4 tablespoons of table salt. I ran the tumbler for 45 minutes. I am going to experiment with less salt and 3 oz. of lemon juice next time I tumble. I tumbled $140 worth of quarters, dimes and nickles. 240 quarters so my loads were much bigger than John's..
I want to thank John333 for the video and making my tumbling time much shorter. I was tumbling from 4 to 6 hours each load.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMcWWNZuvCo
Thanks for reading.....Z
1. coins to be cleaned
2. coins cleaned using vinegar and salt
3. coins cleaned using vinegar, salt and concentrated lemon juice for 45 minutes
4. with and without concentrated lemon juice

 

[ez4sure]

thanks for the info zeek i got a coffee can full i will give that a try hh

 

[zeekeys]

ez4sure if I would of used the old method it would have taken me days to do $140 in coins. I have never tumbled that many coins in one day. When I would get ready to tumble my coins my wife and I would work together. We would take them out of the tumbler and look at every coin to make sure we didn't have some silver, wheats or indian heads in the tumbled batch. Also checked for coins that were too bad to turn in and toss those out. It was always a big chore at the end of season to tumble coins. I tumbled all the quarters, dimes, and nickles all I have is what is left of the pennies for the season so far. I think I have 1,000 to 2,000 pennies to be tumbled? I am hoping there will be a lot of good hunting days before the seasons end. I am way down in coin and dollar totals this year. Again life is full of surprises....
Thanks for reading and Happy Trails.....Z

 

[mudpuppy]

Good Post! Now maybe I wont have to dump so many discolored coins in the coinstar! Thanks Old Pal!
Mud

 

[grumpy]

Morning friends;

Seen your run here on cleaning coins. We ran across a simular deal years ago and it works great with less chemical adds. We use half lemon concentrate juice, and water. Add in walmart aquarimum gravel ; uncoated gravel is best but coated is ok. About an hour and stinkin lincolns are pretty good.
Nasty looking and do silver first.
Grumpy

 

[zeekeys]

Grumpy thanks for the info on the lemon juice. I was going to go with a few more ounces of lemon juice the next time I tumble coins.
Have you ever tried just running the coins and lemon juice and water without the rocks? Some people let the coins clean themselves and claim that works pretty good? I am always trying to tumble as many coins as I can per load.
Thanks again for great tip.......Z

 

[grumpy]

No i never tried it with out the gravel it is pretty easy on the coins the stuff is not real sharp just mild to knock off the crud. after pennies the stuff turns everything copper The bank machines dont know the diff.
Good luck and happy hunting.
Grumpy

 

[Seagull]

Thanks for making this video! I'm tumbling some of my crusty beach coins today with your instructions.

 

[Lakota]

Z I tried the original recipe, thought I had lemon juice still but my wife threw it out last fridge cleaning.

Now I don't have a tumbler yet so I used a plastic patato chip tube container and good old fashioned Lakota hand power to tumble and shake the coins for 10-15 minutes, was not expecting perfectly clean just rollable for cashing them in.

I was pleasantly surprised how well this worked even without the lemon.

Thanks for the good intel Z it was much appreciated,

Lakota

 

[zeekeys]

Grumpy I will make sure I let you know the next tumbling session what happens without the rocks. Thanks for the 1/2 lemon trick. Ahead of time.

Seagull I didn't make the video. I just found it on youtube. I thought it might help with tumbling coins because it is getting much closer to tumbling season.

Lakota that is a lot of shaking going on at your house... That is another nice thing about using lemon juice you can use up the old stuff. I don't think it will make the coins ill if it is old lemon juice??? I always dumped expired lemon juice down the kitchen sink for odor control. I was surprised how well the formula from the video did clean the coins. Got the grim off of the coins.

Mud don't get me on coin star machines. I have a dirty trick on those guys too.
Thanks for replies and hope it will help.....Z

 

[Salida]

Interesting.

 

[zeekeys]

Had some time this afternoon. Tumbled 2 loads of pennies.
1/2 lemon juice and 1/2 water (no rocks).
Loaded the tumbler and set the timer for 30 minutes. Both loads I had to stop about 2 or 3 minutes into tumbling because the drum was so expanded it was stopping the drum from rolling. Stopped the tumbler and opened the top on the drum and resealed it and both times the tumbler ran fine for the rest of the cleaning cycle. Either I have too many pennies or there is some kind of chemical reaction the first few minutes that causes the drum to expand????
The results are really fine and no messing around with rocks. It does cut the tumbling time down a lot. I think if you want the pennies cleaner you could run it 45 minutes or maybe an hour. I think the 30 minutes works just fine and the pennies look good.
Next time I tumble the silver clad I will leave the rocks out and see how clean the coins get...
Thanks for reading and looking......Z

 

[okwaho]

so many different "recipes"

Vinegar or no vinegar, that is the question

But I like the "no rocks" seems like you can jam in more coins if you leave out the stones.

 

[Ben78]

Wow, a lot of effort!

Here in Australia the banks have a machine that you dump your coins in, it counts them and gives you a receipt which you take to the teller and they hand you cash or deposit it into your account. So long as the coins are clean and straight it doesn't matter what colour they are

Ben

 

[zeekeys]

Okwaho you ask such impossible questions for a common man to answer. You will have to seek out the All Mighty Trash Heap for the answers you seek..

Ben78 here you give the coins to the tellers and they put them in the machine. And do they get upset when there machine gets jammed up. I get up set when I get dirty coins in change. So I like to clean them the best I can before I take them to the bank.
Thanks guys .....Z

 

[WIHawker]

I just used 50/50 lemon juice and water. no stones just coins 1 hour tumbling and i can't belive how good they looked. In the past I used 1 shot of vinger and water and tumbled 2 hours they looked okay.

 

[zeekeys]

Thanks for reply WIHawker: Did you have to release the pressure from inside the drum after a few minutes once the tumbling started? Just wondering? You will be surprised how clean the coins get in just 30 minutes. Thanks and many happy hours of tumbling.....Z

 

[zeekeys]

-- moved topic --

 

[WIHawker]

Did not have to relese any pressure. Copper or the clad.

 

[Salida]

I must have used too much salt ( I used rock salt we would use on our sidewalks in the winter)
or I left the tumnbler running too long. The top exploded and made a big mess. What is the salt
supposed to do anyway?
Salida