Cleaning Junk Silver: Good choice or bad mistake?

I know that around 95% of people here would absolutely not clean any of their coins but,
Will cleaning junk silver (bought exactly at spot) remove any of it's Bullion value (not numismatic value)?

 

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No not at all.

 

Keyword is "junk"

 

Just make sure it really *is* junk silver.

Everyone (even dealers) make mistakes once in a while ;-)

 

CoinBear, bullion value is the silver content. I don't understand why you'd think cleaning would possibly affect that.

 

Thanks

 

Well, yes and no! Cleaning coins can remove minute particles of precious metal. If you had hundreds or thousands of ounces, the amount of precious metal lost could be substantial.

Chris

 

It won't OP, but why are you wanting to? Are you wanting to learn how to clean? That would be the only reason I would think it might make sense.

 

No, because I recently bought a cull morgan dollar for 14$ and was wondering if I was still getting my money's worth

 

Why aren't you in school?

Welcome to the forum.........

 

I wouldn't clean it. Worn, shiny coins just look wrong.

 

First off The reason I'm not in school is that I don't live in America, and here it's nighttime.
Second, I didn't clean it I bought it cleaned and at AG condition but for a kinda low premium, I just went ahead and bought it

 

Kind of makes this thread pointless.

 

'bout a 9 on the tension scale coinbear. Chill bro.

 

Nothing wrong with cleaning "junk" silver. It will always be worth spot.

 

Good answers. Welcome to the asylum.

 

No, many other people will read this. I admit I have cleaned junk silver, things like cruddy 1962 quarters. I did it to learn how to correctly clean better coins, so I didn't scrub them, whiz them, or any such thing but rather learned how to properly dip coins. If you do it after reading how to properly clean, and then using junk silver to practice that technique, is fine.

 

Three words...Don't clean coins...maybe that was 3 1/2 words.

 

This is true of new collectors. Old farts like us who have been around coins for 40 years clean them all of the time, but we KNOW WHAT WE ARE DOING. That is the key. If you clean a coin and no one can ever tell it was cleaned, then it was done properly. Another way to say it is "Never IMPROPERLY clean a coin", which covers 99% of cleaning done by those who are new to coin collecting.

 

What's the benefit? Improperly cleaning a coin will make it look worse. Properly cleaning (conserving) the coin won't hurt it, but will have little value for junk silver. Unless you just want to practice conservation techniques on junk silver in which case, great idea.