Monday 3 May 2010

How To Clean Coins

Serious coin collectors will tell you that you shouldn't clean your coin collection because they prefer that "natural look." Unless you have no interest in ever selling the coins, and don't care about lost value, absolutely do not clean them.

Professional coin dealers and collectors are very adept at spotting coins that have been cleaned. Don't mistakenly think that the coin will be in better shape after you've cleaned it. Cleaning leaves clues on the surface of the coin and may affect the value from 25-75% or even as much as 90%.

However, sometimes pieces that are dug from the ground are in such poor condition that to even identify them they must be cleaned. This often happens with ancient Roman coins. One way to remove the dirt and grime without removing the patina (natural coloring) is to soak the coin in trumpet valve oil for two or three days and then brush them with a firm, yet soft, toothbrush. You may need to repeat this several times.

Coins should be handled by the edges to avoid putting fingerprints on the flat surfaces. Avoid silver and other metal polishes - even jewelry polishes. They are much too harsh and will leave tiny scratches on the coin's surfaces.

Don't let anyone handle your coin collection, just handling coins can reduce your coin in valuable. Keep them protected in protective cases.

Verify that your coin is not valuable. You can look the coin up in a coin price guide. For modern coins, you’ll need to know the date and the mint mark, if one is present. If you can’t make out the date, or if the coin is so stained or dirty that you can’t tell what it is, try looking at it with a magnifying glass. If you can’t tell if the coin is valuable, check with a coin dealer (or two, for verification) before cleaning.

Cleaning won’t improve their grading (the standards used by coin collectors and dealers to evaluate a coin), so you should usually let them be. If, however, you’ve just got some old coins around that aren’t worth much more than their face value, but which you would still like to make more presentable, you can usually clean them up pretty nicely without damaging their surfaces too noticeably.

Here are some methods you can use to clean your coins:

Vinegar and Salt
  1. Get a glass of vinegar or lemon juice. Add about a teaspoon of regular table salt and mix.
  2. Place your pennies in the vinegar or the lemon juice. Make sure they are not on top of each other.
  3. Leave the pennies for around five minutes in the glass of vinegar or lemon juice.
  4. Take the pennies out, and wash them off. Let them dry for around five minutes so they will no longer be wet.
Ketchup/Tabasco
  1. Locate a cup and ketchup. This also works with Tabasco sauce.
  2. Put enough ketchup in the cup to cover up the coin.
  3. Put the coin in, and wait three minutes.
  4. Wash pennies off in hot water.
Coca Cola
  1. Get a can or bottle of Coca Cola.
  2. Set pennies in a dish so that they are not sitting on top of each other.
  3. Put just enough Coca Cola in the dish to cover the pennies.
  4. Leave for about 5-6 hours (for better results turn the coins over halfway through the process).
  5. Take the pennies out and wash them off with warm or hot water.
Eraser
  1. Get a dirty penny.
  2. Next get an eraser.
  3. Rub the penny with the eraser as if you were trying to erase a mark on paper.
  4. Then flip the penny and repeat steps 1-3. This will take about 10 seconds per penny.

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