tumbling coins

I tumble all of mine but you don't need too. You should at least wash them in a water/soap mixture to get all the large chunks of dirt off.

I tumble them also, then I'll go through them again, to look for any key dates or album fillers that I may have missed...

I always tumble all the coins before throwing them in a coin counter. Dirty coins could jam the machine, the bank people would not like that.

I would strongly suggest one of two things. First you can put them in a bucket of water and use the garden hose on full power to blast them fairly clean. They will still have some crud on them tho that will jam up the machines. SORT through them good to take out any with bends, chunks out of them, or otherwise misformed that may cause a jam. If you jam their machine more than once with "dirty coins" they may stop taking them from you. I use a "Chicago electric" Dual drum tumbler from Harbor freight. 3/4 cup change and 1 cup aquarium gravel and 1 table spoon of dishwasher detergent (Does NOT Foam up causing barrel's to burst) and then tumble for about 2-3 hours. Gets them nice and clean. I've never jammed the one at my bank and have been taking them there for 4 years now. Turn in damaged coins by hand. Dimes, nickels and quarters that are bent can be flattened with a hammer just hard enough to flatten them out. Good luck.

I tumble all of mine. Very easy to do and cleans most of them up pretty nicely.

I tumble but lately they are not coming clean like they used to. I'm doing it the same (aquarium gravel, dish soap and water) but the pennies and clad are still brown and dull. Maybe I'm cramming too many in the tumbler.