Clad Coin Cleaning

[wolcottdigger]

I tried cleaning some of my clad with a rock tumbler today and I think it came out pretty well.
I put equal amounts of coins and white aquarium gravel in the tumbler and covered it with about
an inch of water. Then I put a couple squirts of dish washing liquid in and ran it for twenty hours.
Some of the coins have a slightly frosted look, I'll try twelve hours next time. Thank you Gibsondan
for the idea and the video showing how to do it.
Joe

 

[Philvis]

Not bad at all! Thanks for the before and after pics. I need to get back out and detect some so I can have coins to tumble clean!

 

[mlayers]

They sure came out looking OK to me. That is one thing on my wish list for my B-day and X-mas. I really have a bunch of coins that really needs to be cleaned.
......Matt

 

[Sandman]

This is all part of the hobby. Those that don't want to clean their coins can let someone else do it by using a CoinStar machine at some supper marts and drug stores. Course they claim a few pennies from each amount, but you dump them in and trust the machine to count them properly. I like to mess with the tumbler though.

 

[Michaelangelo]

Harbor Freight-$40 for a tumbler. Not industrial strength by any means but for the average hobbyist work just fine. Went to a local gem merchant to find one and he even recommended going to Harbor Freight.

 

[wolcottdigger]

The tumbler I used to clean the coins is from Harbor Freight.
It cost about $40.00 but it took 21 days to come in via fedex smartpost.
It seems to be well made for the cost, I have read it can go through a few belts.
It came with one extra belt. I did a load of pennies this morning, I only left them in for five
hours and they were perfectly clean, not like a new penny but all the crusted dirt was gone.
Joe

 

[jb7487]

I love Harbor Freight! Some of their stuff is complete junk but other items are great. I have a store right down the street so I don't have to endure the pain of waiting for the shipment to come in the mail (which I understand can be a major problem with them). I'll have to check out the $40 rock tumbler. I actually looked at one the other day when I was in the store but didn't end up buying it. Can you post the SKU from the website for the rock tumbler you have? They have three different models available. I'm assuming you have the dual drum unit since it is the only one which has additional belts available.

http://search.harborfreight.com/cpisearch/web/search.do?keyword=rock+tumbler