Rusty quarters?

Diabolik

Elite Member
Joined
Apr 26, 2020
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638
Location
Pittsburgh, PA
Forgive me is this is a dumb question but being new to this I’ve never seen this before. Since I’ve exhaustedly combed my back yard I figured since the weather here was not so good I’d take a spin around my front yard and sidewalk. I almost immediately found a quarter alongside the walk. At first I thought somebody painted it, but I swear it’s rusty? I cannot yet see the year on it.

Hoping someone can enlighten me.
 

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Some areas I hunt, clad quarters come out brick red. State quarters that are only a few years old are solid red. It's likely the copper reacting with the soil.

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Thats a clad quarter minted after 1964. I looked at your other posts. The first quarter you found was silver. Most people dig hundreds of those rusty looking clad quarters before they find a silver one. You did it all backwards!
 
Thank you for the replies. So what you are saying is I should expect to see a lot more of these? After cleaning it up a little more I believe it is a 77.
 
A lot of the clad quarters I dig that have been in the ground for some time do come out looking dark grey or reddish.
 
Thank you for the replies. So what you are saying is I should expect to see a lot more of these? After cleaning it up a little more I believe it is a 77.

Yea, you will find clad in all kinds of conditions and if they were in the dirt for even a small amount of time they usually just get dirty to all levels of...dirtyness. (Is that even a word?:D),
The only ones that look normal will usually be the ones you find ON TOP of the ground, not under.

Below you can see a bunch of clad I dug in several hunts out west in Kansas which has some of the nicest, blackest most beautiful dirt you have ever seen.
Still messed up most of those coins.
I live in the SE. now with iron ore and clay infested mineralized dirt that is way different...this soil adds a whole new dimension of dirt and heavy layers of crustyness to a lot of my coins I find so just dark and dirty coins would be nice but ya deal with what you get.

By the way, that nice, shiny silver quarter you found is usually the way silver coins out of the ground..but not always.
I have found many that were disguised as regular dirty clad and I only realized what they were after I tumbled them in a rock tumbler and cleaned them.
 

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Yes, the silver GW was found in soil that was almost black and it was very clean. This quarter was only about 3 inches deep. It is very damaged. Crazy you can barely read the date anymore. I wondered if being so close to concrete had anything to do with it? That is some serious coin. Was each group from a different outing? I see some of yours that have that brick red color too.
 
The vast majority of clad quarters and dimes that I dig come out of the dirt just about the same color as the dirt. That is why you will find a lot of posts about cleaning coins. They are nasty enough that they will not go thru a coin counter and a lot of businesses will tell you they do not want the dirty coins. What you have found is Normal.
 
Yes, the silver GW was found in soil that was almost black and it was very clean. This quarter was only about 3 inches deep. It is very damaged. Crazy you can barely read the date anymore. I wondered if being so close to concrete had anything to do with it? That is some serious coin. Was each group from a different outing? I see some of yours that have that brick red color too.

Yes, each one was a full hunt from a different site.
I never really go out hunting for this much clad but I will happily dig it while waiting on the relics,older coins or silver and gold jewelry I usually look for.
The $200-$300 dollars in clad I found every year for several years does come in very handy when I need to buy a new detector or any accessories for this hobby.

Concrete has nothing to do with it, if modern clad coins are buried in the dirt unlike silver coins the outer coating reacts badly and just get really dirty to different levels depending on your dirt.
Wait until you dig up a few one cent coins minted from the middle of 1982 to present.
I don't call them pennies anymore because the U.S. never minted any coins that have the word penny on them and never will so everyone that uses that term is just...wrong.
Acid in the soil eats away at the zinc these coins are mostly made of so they don't just get ugly and dirty but the longer they are in the ground the less of these coins you are likely to find.
Not less coins, less OF the coins.
We all finds these wrecked up coins but I live in the south with a bazillion pine trees that put out tons of yellow pollen which settles in the ground, mixes with rainwater and sinks down into the soil and turns into zinc eating acid so I am doubly blessed when it comes to digging my share of these stinkin' zincolns.

photostudio_1588848840987.jpg

Oh the other hand mostly copper coins like older wheat cents, Indian head cents and many others can turn from that new copper color into a beautiful green one with the prettiest patina you have ever seen over time.
We all love digging up these types so in some cases the dirt kills our coins but in others it makes them beautiful.

photostudio_1588849779058.jpgphotostudio_1588849705622.jpgGreenie.jpg

As I mentioned in my first post about not all silver coming out of the dirt clean and here is a good example of that in these before and after pics.
This silver ring was found in the bank of an old, forgotten fishing hole I found in the woods in a huge park one time, this ring and a blackened silver quarter I found at the same site were sitting in the moist dirt at the edge of the water for years and wet dirt plus silver plus time equals a sulfuric acid reaction that turns silver from shiny into this black color...another chemical reaction that you might want to know about in case you come across some out there in your travels.
I didn't clean this ring by buffing and polishing, that would have been impossible because of all the little nooks and crannies, but instead I used science...water, baking soda, aluminum foil and a little heat.
A chemical reaction tarnished my silver so I used another chemical reaction to easily clean it up.

photostudio_1588851788584.jpgphotostudio_1588851811480.jpg




Bet you never thought your knowledge about metallurgy and chemistry would grow when you decided to get into this hobby, did you?


Your quarter is probably in better shape than you think, once cleaned they look different so after you gather enough of them and want some advice on how to clean them most efficiently so you can go out and spend it all without getting some dirty looks or killing innocent Coinstar machines, which I have done, just search the forum for the chemical, hand and mechanical methods we use to clean our dirty clad coins to turn them spendable again.
 
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D That's pretty much what most clad comes out of the ground looking like around here. The older wheats and Ihps will have a nice green patina but most others have that red oxide look. Tumble them for a while with a cheapy Harbor Freight tumbler and they clean right up. Silver on the other hand comes out like the day in was dropped. I dug a 37 Merc in a city park this year that still looked to have its mint lustre, and not 50ft away another one that was black and crustry . AS you dig you shall learn. Good luck, Mark
 
Yes, each one was a full hunt from a different site.
I never really go out hunting for this much clad but I will happily dig it while waiting on the relics,older coins or silver and gold jewelry I usually look for.
The $200-$300 dollars in clad I found every year for several years does come in very handy when I need to buy a new detector or any accessories for this hobby.

Concrete has nothing to do with it, if modern clad coins are buried in the dirt unlike silver coins the outer coating reacts badly and just get really dirty to different levels depending on your dirt.
Wait until you dig up a few one cent coins minted from the middle of 1982 to present.
I don't call them pennies anymore because the U.S. never minted any coins that have the word penny on them and never will so everyone that uses that term is just...wrong.
Acid in the soil eats away at the zinc these coins are mostly made of so they don't just get ugly and dirty but the longer they are in the ground the less of these coins you are likely to find.
Not less coins, less OF the coins.
We all finds these wrecked up coins but I live in the south with a bazillion pine trees that put out tons of yellow pollen which settles in the ground, mixes with rainwater and sinks down into the soil and turns into zinc eating acid so I am doubly blessed when it comes to digging my share of these stinkin' zincolns.

View attachment 464758

Oh the other hand mostly copper coins like older wheat cents, Indian head cents and many others can turn from that new copper color into a beautiful green one with the prettiest patina you have ever seen over time.
We all love digging up these types so in some cases the dirt kills our coins but in others it makes them beautiful.

View attachment 464759View attachment 464760View attachment 464761

As I mentioned in my first post about not all silver coming out of the dirt clean and here is a good example of that in these before and after pics.
This silver ring was found in the bank of an old, forgotten fishing hole I found in the woods in a huge park one time, this ring and a blackened silver quarter I found at the same site were sitting in the moist dirt at the edge of the water for years and wet dirt plus silver plus time equals a sulfuric acid reaction that turns silver from shiny into this black color...another chemical reaction that you might want to know about in case you come across some out there in your travels.
I didn't clean this ring by buffing and polishing, that would have been impossible because of all the little nooks and crannies, but instead I used science...water, baking soda, aluminum foil and a little heat.
A chemical reaction tarnished my silver so I used another chemical reaction to easily clean it up.

View attachment 464763View attachment 464764




Bet you never thought your knowledge about metallurgy and chemistry would grow when you decided to get into this hobby, did you?


Your quarter is probably in better shape than you think, once cleaned they look different so after you gather enough of them and want some advice on how to clean them most efficiently so you can go out and spend it all without getting some dirty looks or killing innocent Coinstar machines, which I have done, just search the forum for the chemical, hand and mechanical methods we use to clean our dirty clad coins to turn them spendable again.

Thank you for taking the time to give some explanation and examples. This is all new for me. I’ve already pulled several pieces of brass and copper from the ground so I kind of knew what to expect there. The only other new clad I found has been at playgrounds in the park and most them them were buried in wood chips and undamaged. I’ll take anything I can get at this point. Lots to learn and I am loving searching and digging. Right now any coin is exciting.
 
I use a cocktail of rock salt, pebbles, and white vinegar to clean my coins. Tumble them for 30 mins. They come out looking new! Make sure you tumble regular silver clad only. 1965 - present. Separate the coppers from the silvers. I buff my sliver rings using a dremel.

Nox dude
 

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I use a cocktail of rock salt, pebbles, and white vinegar to clean my coins. Tumble them for 30 mins. They come out looking new! Make sure you tumble regular silver clad only. 1965 - present. Separate the coppers from the silvers. I buff my sliver rings using a dremel.

Nox dude


Diabolic...this guy is telling you about tumbling coins to get them clean and shows you a ring but what he never let on is exactly how much clad he actually finds and has found.
My clad amounts are pitiful next to his as is most other members amounts.
He is a maniac...truly.
https://metaldetectingforum.com/showthread.php?t=278762
 
I'm in NE Kansas. Around here clad quarters and dimes that have been in the ground any length of time here turn brown, and nickels darken and look pretty similar too.
 
I'm in NE Kansas. Around here clad quarters and dimes that have been in the ground any length of time here turn brown, and nickels darken and look pretty similar too.

All those coins in the pics I posted above came from parks and schools in NE Kansas or NW Missouri.
A shocking amount of gold and silver jewelry too, plus a few relics.
 
Diabolic...this guy is telling you about tumbling coins to get them clean and shows you a ring but what he never let on is exactly how much clad he actually finds and has found.
My clad amounts are pitiful next to his as is most other members amounts.
He is a maniac...truly.
https://metaldetectingforum.com/showthread.php?t=278762

That is truly amazing. Hats off to you NoxDude. When I was at the park Sunday I hit a couple of swing sets and came away with a handful of newer one cent coins and thought I was killing it. Lol
 
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