What does everyone do with......?

[mncricket]

Damaged clad.....especially the pennies! What does everyone do with these? SO many damaged (corroded or disintegrating) pennies.... and other coins are very discolored sometimes....do people spend them or save them?

 

[CZconnoisseur]

Tumble them in a rock tumbler with sand/pea gravel for several hours and many will come back to life. Some of the zincolns will be beyond hope at times!

 

[mncricket]

So do you just throw the nasty pennies away or will banks exchange them as damaged money?

 

[kapidr]

They make for pretty photography So far I've just kept them all.

 

[GeorgeinSC]

Most banks will not accept money that is not fit for circulation. Only the US Mint is required to accept it. Some Federal Reserve Banks may accept them.

I tumble all dirty clad. I use aquarium gravel, a little dish detergent and water to cover. Tumble overnight usually gets coins clean enough to go thru the coin machines. Bent coins I straighten as much as possible with a hammer and a piece of steel and just spend them.

Zinc Pennies from the beach frequently are so corroded that they are worthless.

 

[Chris(SoCenWI)]

Seeing pennies have no value... Leave a penny take a penny at every store. I think it is time to just quit making cents. And it would make metal detecting bette:; I've been at sites with so much modern clad it is almost impossible to get to the deeper older stuff.

 

[mudpuppy]

I keep all those rotten zincs that dont pass trough a Coinstar in a coffee can, some wont pass muster even after a good tumbling...I dont know why I keep them, maybe to pay my taxes with someday? Anyhow, you have to dig them if you want to find a big mens gold ring Like REVIER has done more than once, so I do, havnt got my big gold ring yet, but I figure its only a matter of time! I also pound flat any bent clad coin and sometimes file the edges to get it so it will go through a Coinstar...one old guy told me to find gold you have to dig foil, zincs and tabs, everything in between, and he is right...we had only one hunter on here in the past few years that found a big gold ring outside of these signals, it was a big 24k, that hit like a Q, in a totlot...I wish I could remember who it was to give credit, and maybe find his post about it..Anybody remember?. That was a heck of a find and post!.....I spend all my clad practically weekly, on gas and whatnot..the stuff that comes out shiny spends, the stuff thats discolored goes through a Coinstar....I figure all the zincs pay the Coinstars fee..so a guy is not out nothin'.
Mud

 

[Will1877]

Throw them in the bushes next to the house.

 

[mncricket]

-- moved topic --

 

[Kellyco/Brad]

I beg to differ, when I worked for Public Storage in the past, opening up a new pack of pennies wrapped from the bank that I got that day, these looked like the pennies just came out of a river. They were green and black. They had adhesed to each other and it just was disgusting to touch from the crap they had all over them. Could hardly read anything on them. Even tried (for experimenting) the diet coke cleaning trick on them. That didn't help them so I just replaced them with 50cents I had in my pocket, I was not handing those out to customers haha.

I guess if you try to get them to a bank, or even a change machine they have in front of like Publix, you can probably get better looking money for them. Someone here did it apparently.

 

[Ism]

I've heard of one case where a user used a flat rate box to send the really bad ones back to the fed reserve bank.
I don't know how cost effective that is.
I save mine and will probably bury them next to a young oak tree for somebody to find in 100 yrs.

 

[Kellyco/Brad]

Haha, leave a little note in there. "Here is a bunch of old worthless pennies of my time, do with them as you wish X.X.2014"

 

[BarberBill]

I usually throw the cruddy zincs away. The only reason I keep digging them is due to the fact that some small, gold jewelry comes in at the same tid or disc.
BB

 

[Mark in S.E. IA]

I throw ALL clad pennies in the trash. It's a waste of my time and money to clean them up.

 

[Rick(ND)]

I clean mine and others too with my rock tumbler, aquarium gravel, water and real lemon juice after I separate the clad from the copper, Copper take about 2 hours to clean like new, the clad takes a while longer and some I have to clean again and even let soak overnight to get it nice and clean. I will take out any Canadian coins ( use a magnet as any of the newer coins will stick to it) and any bent or damage coins like some of the zinc pennies look ate up too much. I then take then to the bank and cash them in after I am done with them as I don't want to jamb up their counter with bent coins. Between myself and a couple of club member I do over $600 a year and use a 5# tumbler for the small batches and a 25# tumbler for the larger batches.
I usually clean the coins all together in soap and water in the tumbler for maybe a hour just to get some of the dirt off them to tell the dimes from the pennies before I do my separation of them as it makes them easier to see what they are.

Rick

 

[ChicagoJohn]

I put zinc pennies with other clad in my jar. Fun to look at it that I found with my metal detecting. Older zinc penny are bad shape from in ground for over 20 years! I believe 100 years future people might not find 1980's zinc pennies if its in ground for 100 years!