Cleaning a half cent

[McCDig]

Found this half cent today in a Baltimore County rec and parks field.

Please send me your recommendation on cleaning if you think there is a method that may reveal more detail.

I think this is an 1809, first year issue of the Classic Head variety.

Thanks.

 

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[Shakakka]

Toothpick it. That's it. Do it slowly, and don't dig. There are a few good videos on YouTube on how to clean large cents, watch the one where the guy uses three different LC's and three different methods.

Don't use water - it'll destroy the details and the coin will look like crap when you're done.

Don't use olive oil - it might eventually remove some dirt but the coin will be so dark it'll be ugly.

My best large cents are the ones where I left some dirt on them, in between the high points. It makes the details pop. Shows the highlights.

Remember: once you've taken the dirt away you can't put it back.

 

[texjim]

Use a soft tooth brush or a tooth pic, No water... If you dont care about the value u can warm up some peroxide and drop the coin in and let it soak. Awesome fine, thats on my bucket list.

 

[Professor of Engineering]

Congratualtions on the nice old copper!

Shakakka is right...No water...etc.

 

[smokeythecat]

Nice coin, Mike. After wrecking copper after copper, I bought a set of those Andre's pencils. They're advertised here and on Ebay. Check out my latest thread with the CW eagle buttons. Look at the "before" and "after". They work better than anything I have ever used. Much better than brushing, water or dry or electrolysis or toothpicks or anything else I have ever tried.

 

[Hawks88]

Great find. Can’t wait to see it after cleaning. Congrats!

 

[sutphin]

NICE FINDS

 

[trapperart]

Very nice find congrats. You know what it is and you have the date nothing else to know

 

[McCDig]

Thanks to all who replied/liked.
I have a toothpick but no Andre's Pencils but will get me a pack for future cleanings.

In lightly rubbing the dirt with the toothpick I noticed that some of the obverse was going right to the brown color so I figured the surface was broken down and wouldn't reveal detail.
The obverse is in worse shape than the reverse and that is evident in my meager cleaning attempt.

As Trapperart advised in his post "you know what it is and have the date what know?".

End result: I got no more info from working on in, don't think I made it worse, and I still think it's a 1809 Classic Head half cent.