Hello ! I Live in SW Ohio and dug a Canadian 1 Cent 1966 Coin, as shown in the attached pictures, using my Teknetics Gamma 6000 metal detector in a public park. My usual habit when bringing home a pocket full of dug coins, jewelry and trash is to dump it all into a small plastic bucket with hot water and a squirt of liquid "Dawn Platinum" soap, let soak for a few days to loosen dirt and crud, then rinse with fresh warm water, brush each piece with a soft-bristle tooth brush, lay out on a paper towel to dry and then inspect. This is as far as I've gone with cleaning the attached coin. An Internet website I just visited states that the minimum value is $0.03, due to the value of the metals in the alloy, i.e. 98% copper, 0.5% tin and 1.5% zinc. And a chart showed values for EF-40 = $0.04 and AU-50 = $0.05. Conditions defined: Extremely Fine (EF-40) ─ Light wear on the design throughout, but all features are sharp and well defined. Traces of luster may show. About uncirculated (AU-50) ─ Traces of light wear on many of the high points. At least half of the mint luster is still present. I know my dug coin is nowhere near the above conditions; my point is to show that even at conditions EF-40 and AU-50 , the $ value is only a little above melt. So, I'm not concerned about the value; I just want to improve the appearance for my Canadian coins collection. I assume it would be OK to use the same methods and cleaning products as for circulated and dug Lincoln Memorial pre-1982 copper One Cent coins......what do you all suggest ? Thanks, ToddB67
That internet website that quotes the value at 3c is full of it. That value would be based on the price of Grade A copper. Your coin is an alloy and requires more extensive smelting than pure copper. It's really only worth about 25% of the price quoted for Grade A copper. Therefore, it's value in terms of copper content is less than 8/10ths of a cent. I don't recommend that you save any copper cents based solely on the melt value of copper. Chris
Hi Chris ! Thanks for the information on the true value of my 98% copper alloy 1966 Canadian 1 Cent. I agree, it's a "pipe dream" to save copper cents, hoping that the governments will lift the ban on melting and recycling for profit.....they won't, because there would be a huge "sucking" sound as tons of coins were pulled out of circulation in the public domain ! ToddB67
Thanks alurid ! That's a great help and I saved the site to my Favorites list for future reference. ToddB67
Fun find, but not worth conserving.........unless you like these sorts of things. I'd place it, initially, in an distilled water soak and observe what the results might be in a day or two. Upon that I'd employ a bit of this...... http://www.wizardcoinsupply.com/products/verdi-care.html The results may or may not be to your liking......
Thanks green18 ! I added the Verdi-Care site to my computer "Favorites List" for future reference in case a coin(s) warrants the extra cost of a special product. Also, I just removed my last 2-hour park hunt finds from the soaking, etc. process explained in the second paragraph of my thread starter post above. (1) Quarter (4) Dimes, (8) Lincoln Cents = Total $0.73, pull-tab, freshness seal and rusty screw. Soon as the finds dry, I'll check the Cents for any coppers and look at the Quarter and Dimes for any special valuable dates. Then, if any common-dated Lincoln Cents need further cleaning for banking, I'll do this using one of the methods explained at the site offered in alurid's post #3. I'll use the same selected process for the Canadian 1 Cent 1966 Copper Coin, cleaning all copper Cents separately to avoid discoloring other denominations. Although I'm still in the habit of separating the copper cents by weight (3.1g), there's no current profit beyond face value for doing this....I just like to. I'll be cashing-in these coppers at the bank along with post '82 zincers and yes, I know the mints continued to make coppers for some time into 1982 and by weighing on my pocket scale, I catch these too. HH....ToddB67
