Cleaning Nickels, I think I've figured it out!

[AlinMN]

OK, so I have a bunch of Nickels that are rusty and crusty from a bunch of coins I bought that had been stored in a damp basement. I didn't pay much for them so I thought I could play around with them and see if I could clean them up somehow to make them at least presentable. After many failed attempts and coins that looked as bad or worse after cleaning I tried something that I didn't dare try before since I thought it would ruin the coins. However the results were better than expected. Below are the before and after pictures of two nickels cleaned in this way. What do you think?








Now give me your best quess at how I cleaned these coins.

[Digger Dan]

Rubbed a magic lamp... Whatever you used it did an outstanding job.. will you share your secret with us?

[frankiefry]

Now play fair. Don't just tease us with those nicely cleaned nickels. Tell us your method so the rest of us can have nickels as nice as yours. Pretty please? : )

[AlinMN]

Originally Posted by frankiefry

Now play fair. Don't just tease us with those nicely cleaned nickels. Tell us your method so the rest of us can have nickels as nice as yours. Pretty please? : )

Step One takes some time, about two days......hum de dum de dum.....I'll let you know what happens in two days....

It must be the two and a half inches of rain this morning making me cranky since I had time to go detecting today but now its too muddy!

[Coin_Master]

Your killing us all.

[Coin_Master]

Oh and dont use toilet bowel cleaner, it will eat up a nickel.

[AlinMN]

Originally Posted by Detecto

Your killing us all.

Ok, so here is what I did;

Step 1: Soaked coins in olive oil for a couple days to soften crud on surface.

Step 2: Dried the coins a little with a paper towel but left the surface oily, then I took my dremel tool with a brass brush to the oily coin and started buffing the surface to remove the rust and crud. I think the oil helps to prevent the surface from looking scratched, or maybe the brass brush is softer than the nickel?

Step 3: Now the coin looks better without the rust but it looks too silvery and shiny since it has been cleaned. So I have some dellar darkener that is for toning cleaned copper coins (doesn't work very well on pennies) but I thought maybe since the nickel has 75% copper in it might darken it a little. Rubbed some on with a cuetip and nothing happened. Then I thought maybe a little heat? So I placed the coin with the dellar darkener on it on the glass stove top and put a glass lid over it and heated it on low for 5 minutes and it started changing color! So I turned it over and waited 5 more minutes then let it cool. The V nickel came out looking blue and violet, actually really kinda cool looking but very fake looking. The buffalo was golden blue.

Step 4: Now I had to return them to a more natural color so I rubbed them with a paper towel and for some reason the colors got brighter? Then I rubbed them between my fingers and the colors started dulling down and what you see is the results after several minutes of rubbing. Now they look much more natural.

I am not sure if the dellar darkener had anything to do with the color change or not, I might try one with out it and see what happens.
So that is what I did and I am pleased with the results, now I have to get to work cause I have many more nickels to play around with. Good Luck and post pictures of how yours turn out.

[frankiefry]

Hey, thanks for giving up your secrets, but the only thing I have on hand is the olive oil, so I guess I'm back to doing the ketchup thing with mine. It certainly can't hurt what I have to work with. : )

[RIdetector]

You missed a spot on the V nickel.Nice Job!!!

[John W.H.]

Hey, that worked well! Good going! Thank's for the info!

[Survivor]

Great work! Thanks.

[Burien]

We have to place a fish head on your machine's loop if you don't start singing!