how to clean old pennies and nickles

[stranger]

I found a shield nickle, 3 IH pennies and an 1875 seated liberty dime this weekend...how do i clean the pennies and nickle (not doing anythign to the silver)? The dates are 1899, 1885 and 1862 and i cant read the date on the nickle. I've heard about soaking in olive oil..what does that do? 2 of the IH pennies are green..is it best to leave them green or clean? One last question and probably a stupid one, but....... the 1982 IH penny is bigger and thicker than the others...whats the deal with that?

 

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[Mississippi Yankee]

I found a shield nickle, 3 IH pennies and an 1875 seated liberty dime this weekend...how do i clean the pennies and nickle (not doing anythign to the silver)? The dates are 1899, 1885 and 1862 and i cant read the date on the nickle. I've heard about soaking in olive oil..what does that do? 2 of the IH pennies are green..is it best to leave them green or clean? One last question and probably a stupid one, but....... the 1982 IH penny is bigger and thicker than the others...whats the deal with that?

In answer regarding the 1862 IH ..... for the first few years of issue, they were made out of a copper/nickle alloy & were quite a bit thicker than the later bronze issues.

GREAT finds !! Color me jealous.

 

[goldencoin]

i used salt and vinigar (ask ray-king) to clean my not-so-rare coins. It did very well on some wheats and a nickle.

HH
-GC