Rock Tumbler.

No it won't. You have permanately altered the surface of the coin. No amount of toning will make that go away. It might make it a little less obvious, but it is still there and a trained eye will see it.

 

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No, you are not "altering" the coin, (like someone changing the date or mintmark) but if you deliberately take coins that have any value over their face value, clean them this way and after cleaning, can't sell them, except to the newest newbie for a profit, then you are a deceptive seller. Sellers who know a coin is cleaned (and cleaning the coin yourself counts as knowing this) and sells it as an uncleaned coin is not a reputable seller. Also if you can't sell the coins for a higher price right after cleaning, and have to wait a year or more for time to start covering the damage with tarnish to hide it, and sell it as an uncleaned coin, again you would not be a reputable seller, and you are in that case deliberately deceiving the person as to their value.


I think you are postulating that cleaning takes no metal off, and the coin is good as new! (even if it takes a year or more to be that way). But that is not true.

 

I don't think anyone who is buying a coin out of the 10 cent or 25 cent bin at a coin shop is going to give a rat's behind if the coin has been cleaned or not.

Again (and for the last time), rock tumbling is not to be used on any coin with value! Coins in a 25 cent bin at a coin shop are not "valuable coins". People buy them because they "look cool".

 

For those that may not know, a favorite tactic used by coin doctors is to doctor a coin and hide the evidence of the doctoring with Artificial Toning.

 

But your wrong, people who buy coins out of the cheap bin do care. I have put together a number of little sets from the bargain bin and I don't buy cleaned coins. Cleaning the coin in this method makes the coin less collectible...even if the coin is of no value to begin with.

 

Your logic is flawed!

"You seem to have this confused with "coin doctoring" which is people making high value coins more desirable"
Coin doctoring makes nothing "more desirable, and is exactly what you're doing.
Who are you ripping off? my 3 & 6 year olds who get 25c & 50c weekly to hit the junk bins for wheats & foriegn coin so they can "play pennies" with Daddy, that's who!

 

Seriously! I find 1909 cents in the bargain bins at $0.05 each. I can make a hefty percentage on that coin at that price, but if it is cleaned, I would be lucky to get my money back! To the OP, I agree with all others and say this is unethical and you have shown a complete lack of common sense. When we say don't clean coins, we mean DON'T CLEAN COINS, no ifs, ands, or buts. I keep every crusty wheat cent no matter how ruddy ugly the thing is, I don't go and destroy the thing. I might as well find a better use on the empire state building with it if I were ever to do so. And when somebody looks this up, they'll see 'how to make coins shiny' and not know what they are cleaning. Who knows, they might see your cleaned bust half and then clean their inherited 1804 Dollar they have no clue about. Causing it to be worth significantly less.

 

I asked that this this thread be deleted. I guess my idea is not a good one.

 

Hey, you could always sell 'em on eBay as "unsearched rolls", up until the buyer tries to return them or back out of the deal .

(Sorry, couldn't resist the sarcasm:devil

Another flaw in your thinking. If the bank won't accept the coins in your example (which they would, as long as they're identifiable, and can be returned to the mint) then no amount of cleaning will help.

You had me up until you talked about increasing the value by cleaning. Common wheat cents go for what, three to five cents each. And you'll put them in a 25 cent junk bin.

 

My thoughts exactly.
I love going thru dealers' bargain bins and have found many coins I like in them.
I put together a decent collection of British pennies (some Vickies, Edward and Geo) and I wouldn't buy ones that have been cleaned, even for a dime or a quarter!
Just my 2¢

 

There is a good use for a rock machine like this. Those that do a lot of coin hunting (digging) end up with a really nasty bunch of modern change. This stuff needs to be cleaned up before going to the change counter at the bank.

I don't clean old wheat cents. They get dropped on the sidewalk at local stores as I go in. As I leave I'll sometimes see folks searching the sidewalk. It's fun.

Past that, the rock machine should be put away.

 

I metal detect as well and have a few thousand coins that are encrusted, stained or damaged. The only reason I would use a rock tumbler is to get the coins clean enough for the bank to accept them as cash.

I have a completely separate collection of coins found by metal detecting. These are my trophies and not considered as part of my "regular" coin collection.

I know of people that have found key date coins and sold them on ebay but with full disclosure that the coin was a metal detecting find. The price they sell it for reflects this. There is usually discoloration, minor damage and evidence of cleaning.

To clean a coin and then present it as something other than cleaned and to hide the fact with toning is misleading and unethical.

 

They are worth a penny

 

Dang, long thread.

In case anyone is interested, rock tumblers can be used to clean coins. Almost all ancient coins are cleaned, and some by rock tumblers. However, do NOT use rocks in with coins. You want to get plastic pellets that are softer than the metal in the coin. This way its the action of the tumbling that knocks off dirt and encrustations, but not hard enough to scratch the metal. Place a lot of plastic in, and a few coins, so the coins do not damage each other.

While common ancients can be cleaned this way, and I can point you to sellers on EBay that sell them, I don't like them because they tend to "round" a coin, leaving dirt in deeper spots, and make a coin shiny. I prefer manually cleaned coins as more natural looking. However, using this method for a shorter period to knock some of the worst stuff off and then finish manually is perfectly acceptable.

Like I said, in case anyone wished how to do it correctly and for which coins to use it for. I will stay out of the rest of the debate.

Chris

 

*peeks in to a strange forum*

Hi,

This is my first post here. I found this thread because I do a lot of searching for information about rocks... and because I am a retailer who sells a lot of rock tumblers.

About once a month someone asks me a question like this....

"I have a bucket of coins that I found over the years with a metal detector at the beach. They are salty, crusty, tarnished, some are so crusted we can hardly recognize them as coins.... They are too ugly to spend. The people at the bank probably don't want them, and I saw a great video on YouTube about cleaning them with a rock tumbler. Which one should I buy and what grit should I use?"

I could make a sale to every one of these folks. I could tell them to buy a rock tumbler and some of the stainless steel shot that jewelers use to clean jewelry - such as gold and sterling silver (here is a video about it.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfAV_7scpeg

I have been turning these potential customers away. I tell them that tumbling will damage the coins - go ask a coin dealer what to do about them. (And after seeing this thread I visited a couple of coin dealer sites and see that some of them sell solutions and even machines for cleaning coins.)

Now it's interesting that I find a coin forum where the "Strict Numismatists" say that the coins will be damaged... and the "detectorists" simply want to clean up some really grubby coins so they can spend them... and a "practical numismatists" confesses that ancient coins recovered from shipwrecks are simply a welded mass of metal and coral have to be cleaned if you want to recognize them as coins.

I am convinced that nobody in this thread has yet given good advice on this topic. There are times when you definitely don't want to clean a coin and there are times when you don't even know if you have a coin unless you do a little cleaning to find out.

When should you clean a coin and when shouldn't you. Anybody who says NEVER leaves all of the shipwreck coins in the ocean.

 

You should read the thread again.

 

When you never intend to sell the coin in your collection and you like them cleaned and shiny while ruining the numismatic value of them, that's the only time one should clean a coin really. :thumb:

 

Thanks... I do see advice that I believe is rational from you in post #51... also from medoraman who posted while I was out on coin sites. Any others?

 

By no means am I an expert in numismatics. I just started my foray into the hobby a few weeks ago...nor am I an expert metal detectorist--I just started that as a hobby back in late august. This thread is kind of representative of what many people who venture into metal detecting come across: what to do with pocket change that you find? One side of the argument says that you should never clean any coin; however, anyone who has been a detectorist for any substantial period of time knows that unless you plan on becoming the guy who hoards every piece of metallic currency that you come across, this stuff has to be cleaned and spent. Personally, when I dig anything that rings up as a dime or higher, I take care in what I'm doing, as it may be a silver coin, like the 1916 mercury dime that I dug up a few weeks back--my first dug silver coin:
But It may also be a crusty, common date wheat penny, like this one:
Not every numismatist is detectorist, and vice versa...but sometimes, you have people like me, who are avid enthusiasts of both hobbies. It may be these people that Detecto is addressing...maybe not. But you all should probably know that tumbling is as accepted a cleaning practice in the metal detecting world as acetone dips are in numismatics. Actually, its *much* more accepted, as most detectorists arent really concerned about a coin unless it is really old, really valuable, or that individual thinks that it's worth keeping. Personally, I treat my wheats that I dig like silver, and don't clean them, other than a wash in warm water(which is why i have the crusty example to show), but some guys throw them in with regular clad...maybe they can remember when they *were* pocket change, and treat them as such now when they dig them.
Point being, while Detecto's methods may not hold fast to standards of direct trade in numismatics, who's to say that some other Joe doesn't clean those wheaties up, dump them in coinstar, they make it back into circulation, and subsequently into a bargain bin at a coin shop? There's always more than two sides to every coin...

 

Isn't that what they call an oxymoron?