Why clean clad coins before taking them to the bank?

[Donny]

I've been lurking on this forum for a few weeks and have read most posts going back for several months and I've learned a lot from each of you. Seems like you have a mighty fine group of regular contributors. I'm new to MD and still on a high learning curve with my detector, an MXT Pro. I'm in this for the fun of it. Other than teaching myself the basics in the back yard, I've only been out a couple of times for a few hours, but, remarkably, I have found lots of clad coins and yes they are horribly stained. I dumped them in a colander and set them in a sink full of soapy water to soak for awhile, then rinsed them with clean water. I've got pennies that are heavily corroded, dimes stained the color of pennies and the quarters are mostly black and etc. Having said that and realizing that it will be some time before I have enough of these coins to make it worthwhile to turn into the bank, I thought I would ask this question before my "hoard" gets too large.

What is the reason (some of you) meticulously clean clad coins by hand or in tumblers etc., when all your going to do with the clad coins is cash them in at the bank anyway? Can't we just count them, roll them and dump them off on the bank, like we do with pocket change? Can't banks turn in bad coins to whoever they get their money from, just like they do with worn out paper money? Your answers will help me be prepared and to do the right thing.

Thanks,
Donny

 

[Larry (IL)]

My bank will not take them unless they are in "circulating" condition.

 

[Jim Walker]

I think you could just run them threw a coinstar machine.
http://www.coinstar.com/us/html/a-home
But you would lose a % when you use the service. But I just think of it like this. I do not want dirty money in my pocket,
so I do what I think is what I would want. Clean money.

 

[leroy1937]

I just spend mine if not to bad

 

[Texas37]

I purchased a rock tumbler at Harbour Freight for $29.99 and I run clad through it for about an hour. My clad turns out just fine for banks. Hardly any work involved. Just a little water and dish soap and aquarium rocks and it's done. Hope this helps

 

[Bearharold]

I tumble mine also , my bank won't take them unless there fairly clean but mainly they have to go through the counting machine or they won't take them . I also spend some of mine . I believe in the old saying don' t do or say anything to anyone else you wouldn't want them to say or do to you so I clean them good enough to use. I took a batch of dirty coins to my bank the first time and they dumped them out and sorted them and made me take alot back home but since I clean them they now just dump them and usually only have 2 or 3 rejects .



Harold

 

[Mat in MA]

[size=medium]Like everyone has said, it's mostly because the banks won't take them. I too have a rock tumbler bought at Harbor Freight along with aquarium rocks and it works quite well.

The only thing to remember when cleaning your coins is DO NOT put pennies in with the silver and clad. If you do your coins will come out pink in color. Do the pennies seperately to avoid this problem.[/size]

 

[Flintstone]

IF YOU tell them that it is dirty and half missing pennies they will send it back to gov. for remaking.

 

[BarberBill]

If you get a look at much of the clad I find, you wouldn't even ask, LOL.
BB

 

[Bearharold]

Not all banks will take those damaged and badly torn up coins to send in , I ask my bank and they told me I would have to send the bad ones in for replacement myself they wasn't doing that there . Its mostly the zinc pennies that are bad so I take them to Walmarts to the coin star machine it will usually take about have of what I take in there .




Harold

 

[Cajuncoinhunter]

Because my wife truly is a banker and i dont want her handling all those nasty filty coins ! Lots of these coin counters won't "read" dirty coins so you won't get credit for them. Tumbling / cleaning is just part of the MDting process for me. I like the before and after look that my tumbler gives me. I've had that "cheap-o" Harbour Freight tumbler for over 7 months and it works great for me..... I've put it thru the test for sure.... CCH.

 

[Larry (IL)]

Most have seen this before, but for the newbies, this is what a little tumbling will do. No problems at the bank and 100% return on the finds.

[attachment 185518 clad.jpg]

 

[Donny]

Thanks for all the comments, I will visit Harbor Freight and check out the tumblers. Larry: those coins certainly look clean all right. My guess is that there are about 2000 coins in your pile, maybe more ! Whew, that's a lot of digging !

 

[Larry (IL)]

That's a good guess. There was $330, a little over 30 pounds of coins. The last time I bothered to count coins and kept track, our average find was $.11, so $.11 into $330 is 3000 coins. That was one of our weakest years for clad (last year) because we spent more time hunting for old, deep silver, plus Nancy didn't get out a lot last year either. Our best year for clad was a little over $1400 for both of us. That would have been almost 13,000 deep knee bends in one year.

 

[IDXit]

I tumble my clad finds also..... for several hours per batch......My bank won't take them if they are in very poor condition...the pennies especially.... ...sooooo ... I separate the marginal coins from the good ones and take the bad coins to a Coin Star machine and run them through a few times.....at a 9.8 % processing rate.... I always end up with a few that even the Coin Star machines reject and those I just put in a jar and keep....I wish you well and and happy hunting..

 

[BarberBill]

For a while, I just passed up signals that rang in as zinc pennies because so many are junk. Then, on one forum or another I read that some jewelry and rings would id the same and sure enough, on my next hunt, the 2nd or 3rd zinc id I had turned out to be a small ring. Since then, I generally dig zincs, but trash the corroded, junky ones which is the majority.
BB