Should I clean my war nickels?

Suggestion to consider: Satisfy your urge/desire by cleaning a duplicate of one or two examples...or maybe even a duplicate set (not the best/best one in terms of condition, value, etc.)...but not if it's the only one/set you have.

 

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Don't clean them and some of the 5 centers (nickels) do have collector value.

 

First of all, they are your coins, do as you wish with them, but I believe your thoughts above sum it up pretty well. I think most collectors would agree not to clean them, but again, they are yours, so use your best judgement.

 

I wouldn't but they're your coins. If you plan to keep them, it's all up to you. If you plan to sell them in the future, think about it, then think about it again and again. Keep doing that until after you sell them. At that point, it won't matter.

 

..it is true the coins won’t matter after he no longer owns them, but everything else he has remains a hostage to his dangerous, harmful processes....unless he wises up...
...Spark

 

Personally, I wouldn't dip them unless they were AU58 or MSsomething. What's the point? You're just wasting the dip.

 

hey Idaho Guy welcome to CT, its a simple answer in my book. if your gonna keep them, put them up somewhere to show sometimes then you do what you wanna do. if these coins are in good shape, MS67 and up, then NO! NO! NO!, send them off to be graded and then put them up and or show them off. good luck man

 

My opinion. A simple soak in acetone and a gentle roll with q tip moistened with acetone may remove a harmful contaminate from the coin and slightly improve it’s look. The goal is conservation of the coin, not to make it shiny.

 

I agree. NO.

 

War nickels have a unique patina I’m absolutely sure is from young dirty fingers handling their first silver coins, it’s absolutely gross

Stripping tarnish off coins is bad, it removes a layer of metal to be replaced by a new layer of oxidized metal;
Doesn’t ruin them, it just wears them out a bit more and it’s strange to see a shiny worn out coin

I use a clean rock tumbler to remove grime but leave the tarnish intact;
Fill the drum half full of nickels,
Cover with water and saw dust or shavings, if using shavings stuff them in so they’re dense,
Add a spoon full of simple old fashioned detergent, I use one of them Zote laundry bars,
Roll for 12hrs,
Pan out the wood like panning gold,
Roll again for 12 hrs but without soap

After the first roll, if you start with regular sticky gross nickels, they will have a dark gray residue that wipes off with a paper towel, but that’s hard to do and the second tumble does a better job

 

Mint marks are better

 

Can you show us one that you’ve done. Curious

 

Got any before and after shots? To me most of the war nickels that I have encountered were already beyond hope with wear due to circulation. Have at it if you must but I think you're inflicting further damage with your method.

 

I’m on the road this week, but I’ve got loads in all 3 stages I’ll take some pictures this weekend

It’s really gentle, they just come out looking pocket clean and nice, they don’t scratch or polish at all;
I notice a lot of streaked coins in new bought batches, I guess this is what happens when acetone is used badly and looks terrible, I wouldn’t use anything but mild soap on a coin

 

It's also a result of the alloy chosen. Manganese doesn't really alloy well with silver and the result is a variable alloy that leaves toning streaks and is the reason why the war nickels suffered so much from laminations.

 

I was thinking of the rainbow streaks on the cleaner coins might be acetone, but I notice deep dark streaks too, maybe those (or both) are manganese;
They had trouble coming up with an alloy of the right density so it wouldn’t confuse the vending machine calibration, I think is the only reason they put that in there

The second picture gives better contrast, reality is somewhere in between

Top are dirty,
Middle are once tumbled with soap,
Bottom are twice tumbled without soap the 2nd time,
Shiny Kennedy and pocket nickels for comparison

I got a handful of badly wore and dirty coins I’m going to mix in a batch monomints so I can follow individual coins, the barely legible marks should tell if there’s undue wear going on

 

Interesting........

 

I just rub my war nickels with Baking Soda. They clean and shine up in seconds!

They are all my metal detected War Nickle finds, so they already are just worth face and silver melt anyway.

Here is one I detected yesterday. Still needs a bit more work.

 

So I took my bag of bad nickels, noticed there wasn’t any 45–D, so I tumbled them together and resorted them out;
I reduced both tumbles to 8hrs and it worked just as well

Surprised most of them came out so well, it was an amateur forensic challenge to identify them all, was thinking it was impossible about a third of the way through, but over an hour later I think I managed 100%, the middle 2 in row 4 might be reversed only because they look so good