As stated. Do not clean coins. And pleeeeeeease do not use a rock tumbler regardless of what you read.
yesterday, I was visiting with a friend who had collected 87 morgan and peace dollars. The little box is like time capsule they were collected many many years ago then stored for years. I sorted the coins by date and condition then I started looking for variations and MMs. Some of the coins were so grimy that after an hour of examining them I'm thinking This would go a lot faster if the coins had been cleaned up some. Just a little. My friend doesn't need money and I wouldn't be surprised if next time I go out there some of the coins had been cleaned. Gently, I hope. One of my favorite dealers told me I'd be surprised how many coins at show have been cleaned. \ OTOH, I understand the purist POV re: cleaning. I wonder if dipping might be the least destructive method of tuning up dirty grimy coins?
There are a lot of threads pro and con regarding the cleaning of coins. Most cleaning is destructive especially to MS coins and proof coins. Improper cleaning, even gentle cleaning can devalue some coins by 90%. I learned that the hard way when I was a kid. My $1,000 collection was worth face value (maybe $100) by the time I "cleaned" them.
I always believed you shouldn't clean coins (except that one time as a little by I used copper cleaner on a black 1869 cent), but I'm hearing about chemicals that people use on coins for corrosion and PVC damage, and I wondered if there was something for regular grime.
I am a dog lover, leave them out of it - give them a nice bone instead and leave your coins as they are
Yes there is, distilled water. Soak the coins, hold them by the edges and swish them around in it. That's really all you can or should do.
Since it is distilled water, it will leave no residue, so you can allow it to air dry. Place the rinsed coins on a towel and allow evaporation to occurr. As a caveat, if you have only solubalized some crud and not really removed it, the coins will dry spotted. To avoid the most of this, if the coins are laid on a towel and then blotted (not rubbed) with another towel, you should avoid the spotting.
If you want a thread on how to "clean" coins, refer to this, http://www.cointalk.com/t200106/ oh, and don't try this at home(or anywhere else)
For water soluble grime try distilled water. (soak and swish, do not rub) For oily grime Acetone or Xylene. (once again soak and swish no rubbing) As to how to dry the distilled water off a coin, I use a flowing rinse of acetone. The water dissolves into the acetone and almost all of it is flushed away (along with any traces of dissolved grime). What little remains is widely dispersed through the acetone that remains on the coin and is carried off as the acetone evaporates off in just a few seconds.
Dutch, you're the only person I ever heard defend dirt like that, but I do it all the time, I call it pay dirt.
