V Nickel Cleaning Damage

Foragist

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Chippewa Valley, Wisconsin
So I found this V nickel yesterday. :D It looked to be in excellent shape when I dug it; with lots of detail, and a great patina. :D It had a little dirt stuck on it, so I held it under a trickle of running water, and gave it a scrubbing with a nylon brush. That's it. No chemicals. No scraping or picking. A few seconds of scrubbing on both sides. I saw no pitting at all before I cleaned it. Look at it now. :shock: Toast.
 

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Wow.... that bites. Wonder if that had some fretilizer eating away at it for a few years. Thought those V's were pretty tough, saw alot of them cleaned with SOS pads that came out looking good. Just never know.
 
You didnt do anything wrong. The detail you saw when you dug it was the corrosion. If you did nothing and set it on a shelf, it would have ended up like that after it began to dry out anyway. BTW, its likely going to get worse.

Just a fact of detecting, nickels typically come out of the ground completely ruined. I use steel brushes to clean them.
 
Sorry to see that, Foragist - but thanks for posting about it. I’ve been fortunate with my few V nickels that I’ve dug - cleaning with dish soap, water, and a soft toothbrush cleared off the majority of the dirt and didn’t expose any additional pitting. My only Shield nickel didn’t far as well though - like your V, my Shield actually lost detail after the gentle cleaning.

That’s the downside to old nickels - they look bad if you don’t clean them, and they usually still look bad when you do. And sometimes they come out flat out toasted. Like Jason said, you didn’t do anything wrong - that corrosion/pitting would have come through eventually just sitting on a shelf. But more importantly, if you never dug it, it would’ve been forever - so nice save regardless!
 
no luck in cleaning them either. I have ruined several. but I have some drawer finds from my dad that were worn smooth. so the next one I find I am just going to carry it around in my change for a while, and see what happens. I also thought of... since they have no real value... of tumbling one in rocks and mineral oil in my Harbor freight tumbler. I have extra tumbling barrels so may dedicate one to that method for other items beside coins anyway.
 
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