My Mothers day present...a Rock Tumbler...now how do you clean your coins ?

I use lemon juice, just enough to barely cover the coins and about 2 tablespoons of salt. Some use white vinegar in lieu of the lemon juice. Seperate your pennies from the other clad, use this mix on the dimes, nickels, and quarters etc. first, and then reuse the same concoction on your pennies. If by chance a penny is in with the clad they will not come out silver, but more of a pinkish color.
 

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I use aquarium gravel soap and water. I have used the same gravel for years and it cleans the coins good enough to roll or stick in a coinstar machine.
 

For copper coins, I use aquarium gravel, a little dishwashing liquid soap, and a shake of scouring powder. I run the tumbler about 6 to 8 hours and they come out pretty nice. For the clad and nickels, some cream of tartar, dishwashing liquid soap, and aquarium gravel for 6 to 8 hours. They also come out pretty nice. Make sure you don't put any copper coins with your clad or they will coma out with a nice copper color.
 

Yep! Keep the coppers separate from the silver coins when tumbling. I have a 2 barrel tumbler. One specifically for silver colored coins and the other one for the pennies. Good luck!
 

I'm going to try Loco Diggers method, I've always used a rock tumbler I bought from Kellyco years ago, with two tablespoons of "Magic Tumble Clean" that they sell. Works great on penny's, Clad coins come out clean of course, but many remain discolored. Don't know if lemon/salt will change that, but I'll give it a try and see.
 

OK, an update from my last post. I tried Loco Digger's mix of lemon juice and salt on discolored clad dimes & quarters instead of the water/magic powder mix. Results? like night and day. With the old mix, they came out clean of course but often still very discolored as I had said before, with the lemon juice/salt mix, they all looked brand new, no kidding, night and day. It was a "wow" factor. Now, IS it all that important? No, not really, but what I've done, is that I started to keep all the coins I've found since I've retired. Have 3 boxes, one each for pennies, nickels and dimes, and mason jars for quarters, this is all for a kind of "show & tell" type of thing for anyone invited into my "Fort" located in the garage. Example; Since Jan. 2015, say 6600 pennies, 1000 nickels, 1600 dimes & 1100 quarters, it just looks kind of neat to those interested. They like to grab a handful, and run the coins through there fingers, but now, with what I call the "Loco Digger" mix, nickels, dimes, quarters are going to look even better to them. Now having said all that, here is something not to do. I tried lemon juice/ salt with 100 pennies in the tumbler, well the tumbler after a time was taking on the shape of a balloon, stopped it, took it OUTside, and carefully pried of the lid when it "popped" off. I'm thinking the mix did NOT react well with the Zinc? It was weird, on some, (ones that had started to corrode in ground) the copper was gone, and you truly had "Zinc" pennies, first glance looked like the 43 steel 1C, the brass pennies, 59 thru 81, took on different hues, kind of pretty though. And so, with nickels, clad dimes & quarters, by far the lemon/salt, pennies, I'll stick with water/powder mix, so as to not hear a muffled explosion out in my fort, unless any of you have a better thing you use for them, instead of ordering the "magic" powder from the shipper. For what it's worth, I tumble for about two hours, that amount of time works just dandy. Oh yes, two more things, one is for say the "newer" guys & ladies out there. I myself do not tumble silver coins, and NEVER tumble any "Key" date or "Semi-key" date coins. everything I have tumbled are Clad coins, and memorial back pennies and newer, 1959 till present, (have done some Wheaties that were SO corroded or crusted over, there was nothing to lose really), and two, no matter how many years you've been involved in this hobby, 40yrs or your 1st, we can always lean some things from other forum members here. Just like here, what I picked up from Loco Digger, and where he may have picked it up over time from others.
 

I just picked up a single barrel Chicago tumbler from Harbor Freight today. Saw some Youtube videos of people using fish tank gravel , a little CLR , vinegar , salt , dawn ,and water and their coins came out looking like new after just 2 hours of run time. Said they only run their pennies for about 30 minutes. I've got a sandwich bag full of beach quality coins that I'll probably give a tumble to on my days off.
 

Lots of good ideas, but let me point out what I'll call "chemical reaction", use what others have settled on through trial and error. Case in point, many years ago when I first received the tumbler, I loaded some coins, gravel, and poked around under the kitchen sink, came up with scouring powder & I think something else, thinking this should work, well-------It exploded, really. Somehow that mix reacted with each other and created quite a mess, did not explode enough of course to knock the house down, but enough to think, OK Dave, let's not do THAT again. It was kind of the same with lemon/salt and zinc. So now for me, lemon/salt for clad, and water and ? for pennies. powder, dish soap, CLR? only be careful what you might toss in for a mix, and this is based on my own experience.
 

I'm wondering if my brass tumbler for cleaning brass for reloading would work for coins? It's the vibrating type with corn or walnut media.
 

PennyDigger said:
I'm wondering if my brass tumbler for cleaning brass for reloading would work for coins? It's the vibrating type with corn or walnut media.
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Yes it works very well. I to am a ammo reloader. I use aquarium gravel for coins and switch back to walnut media for the brass. I used to use the walnut media for coins as well but it takes many hours to clean as with walnut media you are doing it dry. I am going to try the lemon and salt solution and see how that works for me, sounds good.
 

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