First coin finds, a question and a relic

[JGRDHS]

I just discovered the website, and posted earlier in the week for the first time. I had gone out once before the trio of blizzards last week to a local park and found these coins. Nothing remarkable, nothing too old. The dime is 1972 and was a lot dirtier when I found it; which leads me to my question:

Obviously, there are ways to search the forum for answers, which I have done. I don't want to sound lazy, but I was wondering but I was wondering about cleaning techniques? These were all simply soaked in hot soapy water, but I have read of using a coin tumbler, polishing cloths, and even tobasco sauce. I dont want to damage anything, and I understand there is a difference in the metals, given the timeframe. I thought I'd run it by my new Illinois detecting friends before utilizing other poster's advice.

These pictures kind of suck...iphones camera is not all its cracked up to be...

The first is all the coin I located. The second are the two silvers. The third is some weird thing which was half buried and filled with dirt. I don't think it had been there long...I think it may have been the handle of a cane, or a cheap hunting knife or something. Nothing was too old, but I kept it all. My goal is to find enough lost change to pay for the detector ($60)

 

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[JGRDHS]

Replying to my own message; hillarious. I didn't realize how big these pics were. I have to send the other two seperately. At least it's new stuff to look at while the weather is terrible...

 

[JGRDHS]

And the last....

 

[Lowbatts]

Nice finds!

As far as the modern coinage it does not matter to me how good or bad it looks, as long as it's free from nicks and dings and corrosion enough so it will go through the change counter at the bank, the coinstar, the tollway or the vendoteria.

I think you'll find that is a fairly common theme among us. We like to keep those silvers and finer old coppers/nickels as good as they were when they came from the ground, sans dirt of course.

I have an old Thumblers Tumbler that I wash the clad in. 3-4 pounds at a time. Fine grit or playground sand, a teaspoon or so of it for the really dirt encrusted stuff, some water and maybe some type of soap or other household cleaner.

If you get the chance watch some of Treasurefiends videos and you'll notice the guys like to carry small pill bottles or something that size for the better finds. Maybe some water in there to rinse off the coin gently, without rubbing or scratching it.

Baking soda, silver polish, pretty much anything you might use to clean common household silver will definitely change the look of the finer silver you may remove so I usually leave them as is with little more than a rinse to remove the dirt. Learned this the hard way when I found a couple dimes long ago that were so nice already cleaning actually reduced their value considerably. Sure they polished up real nice but actually lost some of their original silver color/luster.

But for most silver out the ground this is not a big deal. Very few are gonna come out in the condition that any cleaning other than a gentle water rinse will actually reduce their value.

Coppers and nickels are almost in the same boat, but as few of these are gonna be key dates, I don't lose sleep over it. They're going into my goodie pile, not a coin shop. Then again if you suspect the coin is a key date or rare coin, cleaning needs to be a professional matter.

Hit some of the local carnie sites and the totlots and that 60 dollar machine should be paid off in no time. My last machine that cost that much paid for itself in little over a week. But then I had to do that to justify the new toy with Mrs. Lowbatts.

A lot of clad sites are fairly rich but it's the risk/reward relationship that keeps a lot of the guys around here finding fewer, though better coins in the less clad-filled environments.

As far as the pics go, resize them before posting them and check to make sure they fit onscreen first with whatever picture editing software you're using.

 

[marinedad]

i'm pretty much the same as lowbatts as far as cleaning recent clad. i have a few rock tumblers going all the time, "other hobby, one of many" i will use tumbler with small rock and water with clad over night, let dry, add to pile, cash out when i collect enough.

 

[kimsdad]

Here's your pics rotated cropped a little & resized:





A free program called Irfanview I've been using for 15 years or so is my main program for fast image editing when Photoshop is overkill.

All my clad goes into two cups. One for pennies and one for everything else. When I get enought collected, I tumble them. When I first started I bought a toy tumbler at Michael's. They usually run a 40 percent off one item coupon in their ad.



Then, I remembered I had an old cordless drill with bad batteries. With that, a battery charger and an old 4X4, I made my own tumbler that I use more that the storebought one. I wish I had done that first. As for stones, some people use aquarium gravel, but I'm with Tim - don't spend it if you don't need to. A little bit of pea gravel and a little bit of sand works fine. a couple drops of dish soap and just cover it with water & you're ready to go. A few hour later you'll have them as clean as they're going to get. Rinse them outside with lots of water through an old strainer. DON'T rinse them in your sink - you don't want that slurry going into your pipes.

I tumble wheat pennies too, after checking them for key dates.

Large cents & rare copper coins, warm hydrogen peroxide soaks with regular brushings with a toothbrush work for me. Silvers it's just warm water and a Q-tip, or if it's just a common silver, a little wet baking soda on the Q-tip will shine them up nicely but destroy vallue as a collector coin. On anything but a rare coin (including error coins) that really won't matter.

Nickels aggravate me. I used to clean buffalo & V nickels with Worchestershire sauce soaks, but it's a pain to do so and they fade dark gray again anyway, so now I just brush and water those. Treat war nickels like silver coins when cleaning.

You'll pick up $60 in clad in no time once the weather is nicer.

 

[Gimmie The Loot]

At first I wanted to clean all my coins up real nice and make them brand new but then soon realized its almost impossible without making them worse. Now I use a little soap and water and just appreciate it for what it is. Clad coins go into my Schlitz can and when full, used to buy more Schlitzes.

 

[soupie]

Schlitzes, is that a word...lol....Gimme you are killin me here

Nice Finds...

Soup

 

[Gimmie The Loot]

Schlitzes, is that a word...lol....Gimme you are killin me here

Nice Finds...

Soup

I think, its a word. Spellchecker might not like it but I don't give a Schlitz!