Cleaning dirty coins

If you have a few special ones you want to clean, just get an old toothbrush and some toothpaste and scrub away the grime.

If they're just old and tarnished I always drop em in some Tabasco Sauce about 10 min. Take em out, rub em off and they look brand new.

Originally Posted by freonjoe

I use a vibrating cleaner filled with crushed walnut shells. Makes the coins look brand new!

Originally Posted by Mechanic688

If you have a few special ones you want to clean, just get an old toothbrush and some toothpaste and scrub away the grime.

Originally Posted by skylinejackjr

If they're just old and tarnished I always drop em in some Tabasco Sauce about 10 min. Take em out, rub em off and they look brand new.

Originally Posted by parrothead

I just shove them in my pocket and spend them throughout the day. I had a bag of over $100 face that I had dug from metal detecting. I ended up mixing them in with my rolled coin that I take to the bank on occassion. I have a jug I toss change in and roll it up when I need some extra cash. I woud mic 5 or 6 bucks in with the 50 or 60 that I had to roll.

In Florida there are no coin rolling machines at banks. When I lived in Illinois, every bank had one.

Definitely never heard of ANY of these methods...all sound kind of interesting. Will have to try them out sometime.

Right now, I just have a bunch of pennies, but to me, definitely is not worth it. I just spend them, or throw them away. I just save and collect all the silver change.

Waiting to get one of those big water jugs that you see in office buildings. Mixed change, it can hold about $2,000 but a friend of mine, uses it just for quarters, and he said it is full, so I imagine he has like $4 to $5,000+

Originally Posted by GeorgeB

Waiting to get one of those big water jugs that you see in office buildings.

Five gallon water jug. I have had one since I was about 13.. Has traveled everywhere with me. Last year I pulled $400 out to buy my 5x8 trailer...

If you have a few special ones you want to clean, just get an old toothbrush and some toothpaste and scrub away the grime.

I used that on some old walking liberty's I sold on ebay, man they ate them up.
Just to give you an idea of the clarity;

Originally Posted by Mechanic688

I used that on some old walking liberty's I sold on ebay, man they ate them up.
Just to give you an idea of the clarity;

I'm guessing, you meant that the toothpaste ate away all the grime.

BTW, What kind of toothpaste is the best to use?

Didn't really notice a difference with a whitening toothpaste, lol seemed like any old kind would work. Works really well for tarnished coins. I've heard before about the Tabasco and some other kind of sauce. That seems to work well also,,,

I used that on some old walking liberty's I sold on ebay, man they ate them up.

What I mean is the customers really started bidding like crazy every time I'd throw a coin on there to sell,sometimes the bidding would just go nuts.

As was stated earlier, the absolute worst thing you can do to an old coin with numismatic (coin collecting) worth over face value is to take a cleaner such as toothpaste to it. To an educated buyer this removes as much as 80 or 90% of the value from the coin-- often all the way down to just the precious metal content. Most educated coin collectors want to have little or nothing to do with cleaned coins and to those who buy the coin thinking it wasn't cleaned when it fact it was it is bad for the hobby and deceitful to the buyer who thinks they are purchasing something more valuable than it actually is.

Even though it looks like it has more 'clarity' you are actually removing a layer of metal to make it more shiny and this is effectively defacing the coin and making it much less valuable. The tarnishing or toning of a coin can actually make it much MORE desireable to collectors in many cases.

Originally Posted by IdahoScrapper

I found a 1978 silver dollar on a ditch bank a few years ago. Almost missed it because it was so tarnished it looked like a rock. I kept walking. Made it a few steps before going..nah, that rock was way too round. Dug it out and was quite surprised by the year.

It's my birth year.

Left it as is.

Now I'm bummed because I don't have a clue where I put it.

Hope it's not a sign of aging If it's anywhere around the house I'm sure you'll come across it.