1866 to clean or not to clean

[gmanlight]

Found this last night , It does have weare and copper in my dirt is tuff
on them .

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[Bavaria Mike]

Is that considered a semi key date? Looks to be in good condition with a thick patina. I don't know if cleaning it would be such a great idea however, that coin looks like a good candidate for a hydrogen peroxide cleaning, I don't know the exact technique. I tried it on a few coins here but I have different soil, not sandy at all. HH, Mike

[The Pulltab Collector]

Well, its up to you.
Personally, I wouldn't clean it. It looks like even with all the sand and dirt on the coin it is still in good condition. If you were to clean it, I would suggest not using any kind of rubbing techniques, and more or less a soaking technique.

[Hunthicks]

In my soil conditions, which are pretty acid, I find cleaning coppers does more harm than good most of the time. I really only try to get the dirt off and only go further if there's nothing visible to make an ID on the coin to begin with. I have made several ok looking coins worse and at least a couple unreadable in the past.

[oldsalty19]

[gleaner1]

A careful peroxide treatment will kick it up a notch. Do not over-do it, that is the tricky part. Go baby steps. Just knock off the dirt, peroxide does this well, but it can be easily overdone, use caution.

[OtraVez]

Soak in olive oil for a week an work off the dirt with a toothpick

[savant365]

First of all very nice coin. I am not suggesting that you do this but I am wondering if anyone has ever used an ultrasonic jewelry cleaner on a coin? I know it works really well on gold but I have never found a coin that was worth trying it on.

[Rick (Nova Scotia)]

Peroxide will not hurt a coin as long as there is no corrosion. Look at the edge right at the corner where the face meets the edge, if it is sharp, no corosion there, it is perfectly safe to use peroxide as much and as long as it takes. I usually go with 5 minute soaks in warm peroxide, 3 or 4 soaks are usually enough for the most stubborn crud. Each soak followed by a Q-tip wipe, continue untill Q-tip no longer gets dirty.

The coins that get worse using it were corroded, and there is no majic for them.

[Giant056]

Olive oil for the bronze.

[AUVnav]

I frequently use an ultrasonic cleaner on coins. First soak them in olive oil, then vibrate them...

I scrounge around architectural and engineering offices for their old ultrasonic pen cleaners, usually pick them up for next to nothing. A bonus is if they have the cleaning solution, that works very well for coins as well....