1st Mercury Dime, and a War Nickel today!

[Rusted_Iron]

I went to an old swimming hole with my detecting buddy. I found a lot of rusty nails, some bottlecaps, and 3 coins:
Mercury Dime , 1918, very black but still my first Merc!!
War nickel, 1942 P, somewhat black
Wheatie, 1944, a little corroded

The bottom was rocky and it's a wonder the coins didn't get scratched up more than they did.

One of the nails looks like an old square one, am going to clean it up with electrolysis. Right now it's a blob of rust. The wheat cent is in the photo for scale.

I'm going to clean the Merc either with electrolysis or oil soaking.

 

[Rusted_Iron]

Here's the Mercury after about 1/2 hour in electrolysis followed by a gentle rub with water and baking soda. The coin has a somewhat grainy texture, because the corrosion had gotten into the surface of the coin, and the electrolysis exposed it. Remember how black this coin was??

 

[Rusted_Iron]

The war nickel "after" photo is actually right after it came out of peroxide bath. The surface you see in that photo is not the permanent one. So I rubbed it with water and baking soda to get the final product. Once again, the pitting is left over from corrosion that had gotten into the coin's surface and was lifted by the treatment.