cleaning silver coins with aluminum foil, baking soda, and boiling water.

My guess is the person who triggered this was trolling on the Net, saw the old posts about the subject and joined the site just to see what he could stir up. His profile indicates he joined yesterday, made the post then vanished. Good riddance.

 

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He waited long enough to cause me to make a fool of myself. All the same, it was a good thing because it brought a legitimate conservation technique (used properly) into the fore.

 

When the first post appeared, I clicked on the public profile and it said female from Tampa.

 

Hmm. I've had run-ins with a numismatic troll in Tampa. Just a question for your own head - I know you can't release that data publicly - but does the IP back that up?

 

I just mentioned it as everyone was saying "he/him". But many claim on their profile to be different age, sex, location.

 

I like it. Please Lighten up! The member was happy
with his experiment, and the results. The coin is his,
and he does not need any admonishment for what he
wants to try with his coins. After all, it was a common
low grade Peace $, and he just wanted to try the experiment. I say: GO FOR IT!

 

I tried, really hard, not to post to this topic. I'm pretty sure I'll regret not listening to my own advice. What triggered me to add my thoughts was the post that said something like, "They're my coins and I'll clean them if I want to...." You are completely correct. You found them or bought them, and they are YOUR collection...FOR NOW! The truth is, we only get to enjoy our collections for a finite time in this life. Your coins will ultimately be someone else's coins after you pass them on.

This brings me to a basic idea in my own collecting. Again, this is me, I'm not saying you should do the same (but you probably should). I want to leave my collections in the best shape I can for the next owner. I feel a certain responsibility to try and preserve my coins so that they retain their beauty and have the chance to share their history with another collector down the road. I use acetone on all of my raw coins. Thereafter, I treat them with Verdi-Care to arrest any verdigris issues that may be at work, and to preserve the metal.

Again, FOR ME, I don't see any coin as valueless. They all have a story to tell. Some of my favorite coins are heavily circulated and, to me, that means they have real history locked within. I feel an obligation to approach my collections with some degree of respect. That's why people say (in strong terms) "never clean a coin." It's not meant as a commandment. It's meant to advise and guide someone who doesn't know any better. There are many stories about coins that have been improperly cleaned, most have unhappy endings. Jack

 

I agree with you 100%, and would never look at a coin I owned as other than a responsibility for me to protect and preserve history.

With that said, if you own a coin you own it and we have no right, moral, legal or otherwise, to force someone to treat what they own the way we want them to. It's....frustrating.

 

One demonstrates his or her intelligence by the way they handle and appreciate things of historical value and beauty, which coins are.

Coins and the history behind them transcend individual owners. I consider myself to be the custodian of my collection with the responsibility of passing it on to the next collector in as good as shape as I can. Other collectors did that for me.

 

Unfortunately, I have a handful of Morgans that at some point in the 1950's my grandparents taped them to something. They are all 30-40 grade at best. Most have tape residue on them and it shows quite well.

While I agree totally that some things require some cleaning/restoration. But I also know that something is only original ONCE. Take antique furniture. It was the accepted practice in the '60's to refinish it. Now if the original finish has been messed with the "value" is not nearly what it would be if it was original. This is purely from a monetary standpoint. If that is what your are in it for, leave them alone. If you want a shiny coin, and it has not remained that way on its own for the past 120 years, clean it.

The reason any antique holds/increases in value is how rare it is, and how original it is. You see it with cars, coins, furniture...etc. The more an item that get messed with, the remaining original ones are worth more. No matter what you do with YOUR coins, the history is still there. You are just adding your piece to it. I like to look at my 1879 dollar or my 1912 dime etc, and wonder who has touched it, and where it has been. That is the fun of it. The dollar value, to me anyway, is secondary. If it happens to be worth a lot of money, all the better for me.

Have fun with it.

 

That's unfortunate, chicken man. Acetone will make that tape residue go away completely, but then you'll be left with....

....coins of a different stripe.

 

Different stripe! Now that's funny.
I already decided I am going for the acetone. I have nothing to lose.

 

Amen brother. My other businesses are an antique business and a restoration woodwork business. And I specialize in 18th c furniture that has old or original surfaces. As well as antique house interior woodwork The amount of stupid misguided things I've seen done and done my best to reverse is mind boggling. And so much of it would have been fine if just left alone. As a coin collector / dealer in the same. I love coins with original skin and toning. From rainbow toners to original gray circulated silver to chocolate brown early copper. That's what gets me going. Not blast white or red new looking coins. Is why I have almost no interest in anything modern or even 20th c

 

In just about every case, the best coin is the uncleaned one. Why do so many people think they have to clean anything? Don't they know that with all that crud it actually makes the coin MORE desireable?

 

Of course they don't know that.

Teeth? If you aren't brushing every day, they'll rot and fall out.

Car? If you don't wash it at least weekly, your paint will flake off and it'll rust out.

Windows? No, dirt won't hurt the glass -- but who wants to look at (or through) a dirty window?

And let's not even discuss clothes, or dishes, or countertops.

But after a lifetime of "cleanliness is next to Godliness", someone picks up a coin with some sticky gunk or unsightly tarnish on it, and <record-needle-scratch> PUT THAT DOWN! HOW DARE YOU EVEN THINK of <shudder> cleaning a coin?

Yes, there are good reasons that we say "never clean a coin", and I'm sure there are still daily catastrophes where someone finds an old collection, untouched for decades, and thinks "I'll bet these will look really nice once they're cleaned up".

But it's a good exercise, once in a long while, to try to think like a clueless newbie -- or, as they're known outside of coin forums, a "normal person".

 

Hard to believe I can't get a straight answer on how to clean disgusting war nickels. All I care about is removing every trace of black so they can be given away to friends and family for life's necessities in case the shtf. Most people wear gloves to keep from getting prints on their precious metals and coins. I wear gloves to keep my fingers from instantly getting black and stinking. I almost bought a tumbler because any method that requires any rubbing is a non-starter as I'm trying to clean 4000 nickels. So who has actually tried this? I've seen a couple of references (no results) and I'm thinking they are joking. I can barely make out the dates on some of them. There were several perfect AU in the bucket, which I've put in cases, but the rest aren't even worth melt because no refiners want these things for melting. One post said he used drano to clean a disgusting silver coin and it came out beautifully. How 'bout that?

 

Hi, and welcome to CoinTalk!

It sounds like you're pretty frustrated with us for not giving a "straight answer" to your question about cleaning coins. If I'm not mistaken, this was your very first post; we can't answer your questions until you've asked them.

I'm sorry that you think war nickels are "disgusting". I'm not crazy about them myself; they turn green, and they don't discourage gunk quite as well as a silver surface does.

But please, please don't dump them into a tumbler or other mechanical cleaner. Even if you've picked out the "perfect AU" examples, there are lots of other rare die varieties that have additional value. Polish them, and you destroy that value, not only for yourself, but for anyone who ever gets them in the future.

If the Apocalypse does come, people aren't going to want war nickels, for the same reason the refiners don't want them today. But the people who do grudgingly accept them will want them to look like real war nickels. Try to hand them a shiny, polished, smooth one, and they'll suspect it's fake -- or if not, they'll suspect that you've sweated it to steal away some of its silver value, and they'll discount its value (even more than normal).

Honestly, your best bet is to sell the bag on, swallow your loss, and start over with 90% silver. It's more compact, it's prettier, and it's worth more -- yes, it costs more to buy up front, but you'll get that back when it's time to sell or trade it. 35% nickels and 40% halves look like bargains when you're buying, but they aren't.

Good luck!

 

I've been "conserving" Silver coins for more than 70 years, and a proprietary advancement on this technique is the best ever found for restoring original surfaces with any perceivable/detectable alteration to the coin if using distilled water, and NEVER rubbing, only "blotting" the coin/coins!

I've only collected a 6 figure quantity of AU/+ coins, and shown your technique to young collectors, who otherwise use chemicals that often harm the coin.

The caveat is, that the technique requires patience which most don't have!

JMHO