I went to the US Mint store in DC, and they have a change machine, where you can put in a $1 or a $5 and get the equivalent amount in Guam quarters (or whatever the current quarter is). (They also have machines for the 2009 Sac and 2009 Tyler (of whatever the current Prez release is). The Guam quarters I got were all tarnished in some way -- some with big fat ugly fingerprints, and others who looked like somebody spilled some coffee on it. I have here 70 2009-P quarters, and maybe four of them are BU (!!). I spoke to the people there, they said they've heard that complaint. And then one nice lady behind the counter offered to grab them *directly* from a mint bag (!) and hand them to me. I gave her the 66 non-BU quarters, and she counted out 66 from the mint bag. I just took a look at them: same thing! What the heck?! Fingerprints or tarnish-looking stuff on coins from a Mint bag? Is that normal? In any event . . . . can I "clean" these? These are brand new MS Unc coins, but with ugly fingerprints and other stuff on them. Any ideas?
If you do not care about them the just experiment. Acetone is sometimes used. If you clean a coin it really kills any numismatic quality it may have had (but it will always be worth $.25)
Does anyone know if common household products (silver polish? except it's not silver -- anything else) would work? I was hoping to give them out to friends who are not collectors (and/or of the type who collect 1 quarter per state) -- but I wanted to at least give them shiny Unc ones (so, I'm not worried if I kill future value and it ends up never been worth more than .25)
Are you sure it's not some type toning? I have received two PR quarters in change over the past few weeks, both have some kind of ugly golden/tan toning on the reverse. I've also noticed this on an end coin in one of my 09 Kennedy rolls.
Yes -- in some cases it does look like golden/tan toning. But how can something tone so quickly? (But there are also some big-ugly fingerprints on some? How do I get rid of those?)
I got my first Guam quarter in change yesterday. Denver mint. Coin looked like it came out of a new roll. Very nice. Sounds like Philly didn't do as well as Denver on these. I actually like the Guam quarter. They did a nice job of putting that 30 mile island on the quarter.
MS70 works great! I am in love with this stuff! http://www.wizardcoinsupply.com/product/ms-70.html I used it with the 2nd 2009 penny to remove spots and it looks great! It also did NOT change the color.
