I am assembling a year/mintmark collection of lincoln cents. Today I found a 1941 penny in a roll, but their appears to be a bluish, corrosion-type substance attached to it. It makes it very difficult to read the date and also the details of the coin. So the question is should I try and remove the blue stuff so I can read the coin, or leave it be, and risk it damaging my other coins?
Sounds like your poor penny is trashed. Blue corrosion may have already eaten down into the copper surface of the coin and that can never be fixed. That's probably why it ended up in a roll. If it was something really rare, you might want to try to clean it and live with the damage, but just about any coin dealer will have a nice circulated one for you for less than a dime. On the other hand, you don't have much to lose by cleaning it. If it turns out nice, keep it, if not, it is still worth a penny. A wooden toothpick might knock off all the chunks.
Well, it turned out to be a no matter point after all. I checked through the next roll and found a 1941 wheatie in VF condition what are the odds of that?
