Anyone know how to clean this Indian head nickle without lowering it's value?

I found this Indian head nickle coin roll hunting, it has this cover on it that I have not idea what it is, can anyone help? in removing it without lowering the value or hurting the nickle, thank you.

 

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Welcome to CT, don't wast your time.

 

Welcome to the club. I'm afraid that coin is a basket case.

 

+2! It is damaged beyond recovery.

 

You couldn't lower that coin's value if you boiled it in sulfuric acid.

 

On the bright side, you don't need to worry about lowering its value.

You could try soaking it in water for a while, but I doubt it'll make much difference. You could also try acetone, just in case part of what's stuck to it is paint/varnish/plastic, but that looks like corrosion to me.

Welcome aboard!

 

But to all the disparagers, let me add: I'd pick that nickel out of a pile of fresh, shiny Jeffersons in a change jar, and be happy to have found it. Wouldn't spend it, either.

 

There is zero need to physically touch or work the surface of that coin to conserve it, and certainly not with anything more intrusive or damaging than a fox or camel hair paint brush.

Soak it, water then acetone then xylene

Go through it again and if still not happy and since it is nickel having a much tougher skin than silver, help it with a brushing.... no tooth brush or such and certainly not a wire wheel, motor or hand powered.

If still no joy, let it swim in an ultrasonic with non-phosphorus detergent and water although the peroxide with vinegar will eat off many things including the surface if left in overnight or so.


To think you've nothing to lose while having no idea if that is a valuable variety may prove foolish. You surely don't want to reduce or lose what could be many dollars if that is a 1916 DDO or other potentially valuable buffalos even conserved from its current condition, by ruining it on purpose.

 

Drown it in white vinegar for a couple weeks. I'd stay away from the Xylene.

 

Why not use xylene on a nickel? It will do zero damage to the surface unlike a two week soak in vinegar. I see no reason to consider using acid since it is not even known yet if the date is visible.

A G4 '16 DDO books around 4 grand and recuperated even from this state, if the date shows, it will fetch better than that.

With what is visible on the back, the date just may not be worn off.

 

Xylene is an organic (in the chemistry sense, not the earthy-crunchy sense) solvent. It's relatively benign as such things go. It's similar to gasoline or kerosene, but without additives or a lot of the more toxic components.

(Once upon a time, you could buy benzene, toluene, or xylene. We learned in the 70s or 80s that benzene was a nasty carcinogen, and took it off the market. Toluene was great, but as best I can tell its sin was that a sufficiently motivated person could use it as a starting point for making meth -- and meth-heads are extremely motivated. So it got run out of town on the same rail as iodine, phosphorus, and Sudafed.)

Xylene will work better than acetone on some forms of organic gunk, varnish (refined gunk), plastics, and adhesives.

 

Good stuff and Lord M, you are a gentleman and a scholar.

Thanks jeffB, and Tolulene is still simple enough to purchase as far as I know.

Carbon Tetrachloride, aka instant spray cancer can still be found in antique brass toy appearing fire extinguishers, and is some evil stuff.

As a public service for those of you living in areas that have nuke or other interesting facilities.

Check with the CDC to find out if your county was excluded from their ministerial function of gathering cancer death stats. Simple question should get a simple and quick answer, right?

Several such counties were involved in very peculiar federal suits starting back in the 1950's and many even years before (30+ in some cases) before the people of their counties had any idea Congress had pinpoint targeted their counties for nuke construction. Even many years before our government had a regulatory board for radiation.



Why might this be relevant to anyone reading here on this coin forum?

It may not be, but,

if you live in those counties, available to anyone there who walks into any number of ag supplies or coops, are clearly labeled and wickedly carcinogenic substances that a mere dusting of your door knob or opened mail inside your home will most certainly bring about your rapid demise. Your untimely death will not be added to the cancer cell stats or likely investigated for any such potential causal relationships, with some ag substances being virtually undetectable as a contributing or causal factor.

Do your research if this may apply to your hometown.

A good starting point may be to sneak up on those families whose local fortunes were built on constructing and administering to those facilities.

Buffalo nickel to get this topic back on track and pardon me for going off on a tangent.