Baking soda. Rub it in and in then rinse with water and in a few seconds they will shine it up beautifully!
It is how I have been cleaning up all my silver US Coins I have metal detected within the past 4 months.. All of these -
OP, acetone is always a go to, (at least it will never hurt silver). Practice on these, and rinse with distilled water after. May not do anything, but always safe so at least will not do any harm. Since they are silver, coin dip would probably clean them. Something like the kennedy, being a bullion item, is a good way to learn. Read the instructions, and start with short dips. The goal is to clean the coin with the least amount of time spent in the chemical.
Awesome feedback ty both...so say i get that 1922 cleared from that orange crap on it ....auction worthy?
On some of my less valuables I use the Silver Jewelry dip from Walmart. A few seconds and they come out very nice.
Since these seem to be environmentally damaged already and therefore worth melt value no matter what, there is no harm to shine them up if you just want to make them more visually appealing. I've used lemon juice for something like this and it helps make them look nicer. Just get a dish or cup and completely submerge the coins into the lemon juice. Let it sit for at least an hour. Rub the gunk off in between the time and at the end. Finally, rinse them with water.
Just for the sake of clarification, you need to understand something - neither of those coins has any luster. And both are already irreparably damaged by the environmental contamination. This is why paddyman98 is making the suggestion he is making. The baking soda will act as an abrasive, hopefully allowing you scrub off the contaminants and lessen their effects - the look they presently have. Now he'd never make a suggestion like that for most coins, because that method is harsh cleaning. But he did it in this case because the coins are already damaged. So doing what he suggested isn't going to hurt them anymore than they already have been. Nor is it going to alter the value in any way, up or down, because the only value they have is melt value.
And any time I see the suggestion to clean coins by rubbing them with ANYTHING, I want to shout: DO THIS ONLY ON COINS THAT ALREADY HAVE RUINED SURFACES! All of the suggestions here, except @medoraman's distilled water and/or acetone, can damage coin surfaces. Most of them will damage coin surfaces. It's just that the new damage may look nicer than the old damage. The Kennedy half looks like it may have had a sticker or enamel layer applied on the reverse. Acetone would likely get rid of that without causing further damage. But whether you remove it gently, remove it harshly, or leave it on, it's still a (checks CoinFlation) $7.15 coin. No premium beyond silver value. I just always picture someone searching "how do I clean up Grandpa's tarnished coins", landing on a thread like this, and going to town on a bunch of original 19th-century proofs with a toothbrush...
paddyman98, posted: "Baking soda. Rub it in and in then rinse with water and in a few seconds they will shine it up beautifully!" PS IMO, there is no excuse for any knowledgeable (advanced?) collector to suggest this. I hope you are joking. Hopefully, the Mods will delete your post it if you don't!
I took this suggestion as one with an implied, HUGE caveat, "If the coin is already seriously damaged and it simply does not matter what kind of cleaning is done since the coin will NEVER be worth more than melt". That is how I took it, but still would never do that to a coin. Better to leave it original than scrub it. I would put in water, then acetone, MAYBE dip it, and after that leave as is. Now, an ancient that are all cleaned anyway, with a thick patina, I will scrub something off the surface, but not moderns.
These appear ( the half especially ) like coins chemically cleaned before 'gold plating' it with micron layer. and now it is faking off. The gold is the thin sheets of no real value, and no coin value except the silver and date. My former bullion shop in town closed but he had a glass vase with them.
