Recently I purchased a Morgan dollar at an auction with what I thought was toning. Did not realize until I got home under a bright light, and with the help of this forum, that it was a result of bad dipping. I have used a home made silver dip before, you bring boiling water to a boil, add baking soda and salt, and with the item in a bowl with aluminum foil, pour the boiling mixture over the item. This usually does a good job of stripping tarnish from silver. However when I poured the silver cleaner on the peace dollar, it DID remove the bad dipping, but left an ugly brownish-pink color in splotches on it. I don't know what went wrong, another silver coin I had in with it turned out good. Only thing I can think of that the chemical used in the dip reacted with my homemade cleaner.
Well the peace dollar was only worth melt with the condition it was in. I was trying to bring it back to life without spending money on a coin dip. I have used this homemade cleaner before and have had excellent luck cleaning silver with it. I don't know what went wrong.
I know what went wrong, you tried to clean the coin! And, not that there is a good method, but with the worst possible method. You have much to learn, grasshopper. MUCH! Lesson #1: Ask here before doing anything!
You only think you had good luck with it before. You really didn't. Anybody that knows coins could look at a coin that was done to, and know it was done. And they would only have to look at the coin for about 2 seconds. Literally 2 seconds.
First it's a coin worth melt, then its a coin worth $75 then a coin worth $500. If you knew anything about cleaning coins the first rule is DON'T. Then if you have to look at rule number one. The method you used is just above using a wire brush.
