daddyflea coin cleaning

daddyflea

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Jul 4, 2012
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OK Guys here is my attempt to clean coins. I am only going to be working with dug V Nickles and Buffaloes. Most of these have been cleaned with Electrolysis. Most of them are fairly clean but they are not Shiney. I have 37 nickles and one in Electrolysis that I can not tell what it is. I think this is an old V nickle.





I will be using a Thumblers Tumbler with Stainless Steel Media. I started using this for reloading some time ago and found this is the best method for cleaning Cases. Messy since you must put in the Media then fill with Water. Then a good squirt of Liquid Dish washing Soap. The Water usually gets as Black as Coal. I usually Tumble for about two hours.





I have no idea how this will turn out. I will post the results. Here is a picture of the Coins. Number 38 is in Electrolysis.



I am not going to spend much time using Electrolysis to get the bad coin very clean. I am going to throw it in with the rest as soon as I can tell it is really a V Nickle.

I do need some suggestions on how to keep them Shiney if I can get them there.
 
I would think the stainless media would do more damage than good? Maybe walnut would be my guess but I'm far from educated on this stuff.


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After around 15 minutes Electrolysis it is for sure a V Nickle. I am pretty sure the date is 1906. Funny but the date is about all that is near readable. Here is the Front side with date.



Here is the back. Electrolysis failed to get all the crud off but a little more time would have cured that.



I think we can all agree a Collector would laugh at you if you gave him this coin so cleaning will never hurt this coins value. It will only increase it.
 
I would think the stainless media would do more damage than good? Maybe walnut would be my guess but I'm far from educated on this stuff.


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I hope you are wrong but I am not sure. As you can see from the pictures. These Coins have zero collector value. I will post back in a couple hours.
 
Hey, this is something that I'm dealing with as well. I have a dime and 3 quarters that are just plain cruddy and rusty looking. What is Electrolysis? Is it a machine or a solvent?

Any advice would be wonderful. Anybody?

I know, I know, you're here doing the same thing -- asking for advice, but I'm not even as educated as you are about these things.

Thanks,

Silky
 
It might be a good idea to test one and see? Even though they may not be worth much to someone else if they were mine I would still try my best to keep as much legible info on them still legible. And I would think the stainless could damage some of the raised letters and numbers. But again I'm just going off my limited experiences so maybe someone with a legit background will come along and enlighten!


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Hey, this is something that I'm dealing with as well. I have a dime and 3 quarters that are just plain cruddy and rusty looking. What is Electrolysis? Is it a machine or a solvent?

Any advice would be wonderful. Anybody?

I know, I know, you're here doing the same thing -- asking for advice, but I'm not even as educated as you are about these things.

Thanks,

Silky

Goggle it and here is what you will find. you take an old 110V cell phone charger that puts out 12V. Try to find one that has the Highest Amp out put you can. Cut the end off it. Find the Positive and Negative Wires and soldier alligator clips onto them. You then get a stainless steel spoon and Clip the Positive End to the Spoon. The Negative End goes on the Coin. You then get a small container that is either Glass or plastic and put enough Water in it to cover your Coin. Add a couple Teaspoons of Salt to the Water. Then plug in the Charger and watch the Crud come off the Coin and deposit on the Spoon. If the Coin does not Fizzle and the Spoon does you need to reverse your Wires. In about 20 to 30 minutes the Crud will be off the Coin. It will not get it Shiney again but this will clean the dirtiest coins.

I admit I have cleaned Clad Coins in the past using SS Media so I know this will work, but I don't know how well on old Coins.

Be careful after Electrolysis the Water left in the container is like Acid.
 
So after 2 hours tumbling in the SS Media here are limited Results.



As you can see most of these are War Nickles and they look like new. The one that looks like it was mashed, was evidently mashed before I found it. This is not wear. I took these Coins out because they were plenty good and I did not want to wear them for no reason. The Buffaloes were all still real dull. I put them back in to go another two hours. If this does not make them Shiney I will discontinue.

Here is the V nickle that everyone is wondering if the almost invisible details disappeared.



As you can see the Details are much better. This is the Front and it does Shine. No doubt this Coin was in such bad shape I could not tell what it was. It was totally Toasted.

In fact the date now appears to be perhaps 1898.

The Picture below is the Back Side. Before it was Cleaned I could not make out any details at all. Now you can faintly see part of the V.



Now I have no fears at all about cleaning coins using this method. In two hours I will know if I can bring back the Shine in the Black Buffaloes. I will post a picture when they are done.
 
OK Here is the Result.



As you can see the Shine did not come back to the Buffaloes period. They are clean and I can not tell any wear but they are not Shiney. This seems to work like a charm on the Silver Coins such as the War Nickle but it seems that once these buffaloes turn black they will stay black.

I do have dry Walnut Media that I could tumble these in but I feel that it is unlikely to bring back the Shine and I know this will wear the coins considerably.

I am posting I believe a 1913 Var 1 Buffalo that was cleaned for 4 hours to give you more detail. This Coin was dug and was just as nasty and crusted over as any.





This looks bad compared to my worst War Nickle





Here is a picture of a cleaned Buffalo (4hrs) that was in pretty good shape when I found it. Notice it has a date.



 
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Here is a Token I discovered while cleaning Good for 5 cents in Trade. This is most likely worth more than the Nickles and I did not know it was there.



 
I clean most of my nickels using this method:

http://metaldetectingforum.com/showthread.php?t=198641

It works well.

I know now that the war Nickle and other Silver Coins will clean up good using this method. I have also used this on Copper pennies with very good results. In person the Buffaloes don't look very bad but I am not satisfied. I will try your method on the next ones I dig. Just for reference did you clean them with Electrolysis first before you buffed them with the SOS Pad? Wondering because mine have really had some tough crust on them.
 
My thread just below this one shows me getting brown Jeffersons shiny with my method. I also got a buffalo shiny too but it didn't startout brown. Would most likely work but will take some elbow grease but hell, if you're willing to put in the effort with an S.O.S. pad then it should be no sweat.
 
Soy sauce will strip the mineral build up off from a nickel.It works faster than anything else I've tried.I don't recommend using it on copper as it will strip it to a bleached look,unnatural coloring.
 
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