Indian Head Cents

Good morning everyone,

New to the forum but have been reading a lot. I am rather new to coin collecting but received some coins from my grandmother via her will and it has kind of renewed my interest in collecting.

In some of the coins I received were about a dozen Indian Head Cents. She had kept them in albums however, the were not the best quality and appear to have allowed in dirt and perhaps even the books have degraded to a point where maybe glue is breaking down.

My question(s) is/are this:

1- Should I attempt to GENTLY/SLIGHTLY clean the coins?
2- and if so, what should I use and what is the proper meathod?

Thanks in advance,
Scott

 

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Pictures of what the coins look like might help. But if it is just dirt I would leave them alone.

 

I agree with Mark as cleaning a coin usually does more harm than good.

 

Pictures would be nice. Most cleanings are detectable by collectors, and can lower the desirability and value of a coin.

 

Don't clean them.

If you must clean them up, a soak in mineral oil for a few weeks to a few months (depending on how dirty) will usually loosen up quite a bit of the dirt. But don't use brushes, or anything like that to assist.

If you decide to ignore the advice, practice your method of madness on a common coin from pocket change so you don't mess up the old stuff as you learn.

Of course, a list of dates and/or photos would be helpful to confirm whether there are any of particular value that you definitely shouldn't touch at all.

 

Thanks for the responses! I have tried to do some research online re this subject but everyone seems to have their opinions.

I attached 4 pics, the 1904 is one of the better ones in the group. The 1903 is one of the worse ones in the group. Hopefully that will give you guys/gals some idea of what I'm looking at here.

You can see the 'glue' I'm talking about on the reverse of the 1903. This is on quite a few of them. I don't mind at all leaving them the way they are but I just figured if I could make them look a little better without tremendously hurting them then I might.

I don't think I have anything of much worth (other than sentimental). Though my red book is in the mail to me. They range from 1882 until 1907

Thanks for all the help!
Scott

 

I think the coins look great the way they are. I would leave them alone. Just my opinion though

 

I do not think cleaning them will affect the value much, since there is not much money value there, but the sentimental value is more since they were part of your grandmamas collection, maybe get a new album to keep them in or one of those coin stock wallets and note that they were part of her collection, then you can hand them on down the line.