How do you clean old coins?

[argohunter]

I gbought me a metal detector yesterday. Not a real expensive 1, just a mid grade 1 to see if I like it. I went out to and old home site and I found thus coin about a foot deep. I can't even tell what it is. Can anybody tell me how to clean it? I don't want to do anything that will destroy the value if it has any, which I'm sure it probably don't. Thanks.

[turkeytail]

Dont see any detail at all. Looks like it could be a large cent. Try soaking in olive oil a week or two then gently try to rub the crude off of it. DONT POLISH!!! Mark.

[Bone2stone]

Not a large cent. Most likely it is a Lincoln cent or Indian.
In any case the chances of it being valuable are miniscule.
It is only collectable in good condition anyway.
Clean as you will the olive oil trick will penitrate to a point
and will only allow you to do so much.
The coins value is up to you as an individual.
Corrosion to the point of total loss is a common event when the
soil conditions are very alcaline or acidic.
A rare coin on your first outing would be an astronomical happening.
There is a commercially available cleaner CLR that sould help in your efforts to at least retreive a date and coin type.
BTW: A foot Deep? Re-think your depth approximation.
Even the very best Machines are really pushing their limits on a cent at 8-10 inches.
I have been using them for over 40 years, and have 6 different machines.
Bone2stone

[argohunter]

I dug a can up 1st. Then I was checking the hole, and this was down under where the can was at.  This was the second item in the hole, that's how I found it a foot deep.

[turkeytail]

Yes you could use CLR and IF you do happen to find a date and it says 1909-s VDB or 1914-d You just destroyed any value it had. Dont think you will find a date anyways cause the rim is almost completely gone. Ive used olive oil on ancients to at least make the coin identifiable. Worst case scenario I soaked over a month using soft toothbrush lightly once a week. AG grade is better than AG cleaned. Mark.

[ken]

while hunting i come across a lot of silver coins and i find baking soda and a tooth brush to do a pretty good job and it does not hurt the metal.GOOD LUCK WITH IT!

[turkeytail]

Liquid Tide on real dirty silver coins also will clean them up.

[Bone2stone]

turkeytail wrote:

Yes you could use CLR and IF you do happen to find a date and it says 1909-s VDB or 1914-d You just destroyed any value it had. Dont think you will find a date anyways cause the rim is almost completely gone. Ive used olive oil on ancients to at least make the coin identifiable. Worst case scenario I soaked over a month using soft toothbrush lightly once a week. AG grade is better than AG cleaned. Mark.

  I repeat your chances of finding a rare date coin is miniscule.
A 1909S VDB? 1914D it would be an astronomical coincidence.
The coin is just too corroded. Even if it were a key date coin your
chances of retreiving the date is just too remote.
I would venture to say you may never know for sure.
I have found a lot of cents that are so corroded that attempting
to retreive a date was a lost cause. Scrap copper is the best they were good for.
Mark "Turkeytail" is right though, CLR is a substance that is very aggressive and will attack the copper not just the corrosion.
Bone2stone
AKA: Out4gold

[turkeytail]

Your right on the odds. Ive got "around" 30,000 wheaties, give or take a thousand. The only great pull was a 31-s about ten years ago. Ive collected coins since I was 6. Im a purest when it comes to not cleaning them. About 15 years ago a guy at the shop lost his grandpa. He got his coin collection and knew I collected and asked if i was interested in buying it. It was all Morgans including a 1893-CC. The night before he took them ALL out of the sleeves and polished them with Silver-O. There were twenty some of them and all WERE MS-60 to MS-64. The 1893-cc would have been around MS-63. Today that coin ALONE would have been worth around $5000 bucks ungraded. I could have puked. I would have paid around $2500 for them back then if they wouldnt have been cleaned. Didnt even make an offer.

[kyheadhunter]

I thought I'd share a story about my mother's rare coin. She had what is called a Standing Liberty if that makes sense. I know absolutely nothing about rare or valuable coins.
Anyway she was always so worried she'd give it to one of us kids for lunch money so she put it up for safekeeping... away from her other change. Well not to long ago, something came up about her coin in the conversation and I asked her what she had ever done with her coin.
She said  she had forgotten all about it...she had to think for awhile, but soon remembered where she had put it and went to her bedroon to get it. She walked back into the room with a most disappointed look on her face...she had hidden it under the leg of her bed. The constant friction caused by any movement of the bed had completely wore off every detail from both sides of the coin. 
Nice find argohunter...way I see it is...any find is a good find!
jane

[cjl1977]

I am sorry, but i would have to disagree with using CLR on any coin. even if a coin is worn, it can still be worth money depending on its rarity. Olive oil will do the trick. as far as being able to get depth, there are machines out there that will get depth of more than 12 inches. i have a minelab that will detect some coins at 15 inches or more if the conditions are right. such as moist soil, type of dirt etc. I think a congrats in favor for someone getting out and trying something new, and words of incouragement not putting anything down. that is my thought. I have only been detecting for about 4 yrs now, but am founder of two treasure hunting clubs, and hear all the info that is out there and share that info with others.

[Kelhdriver]

As a long time coin collector, and a member of NGC, The best you could really do is soak it in soapy water then rinse to get the dirt off of it. DO NOT RUB! on a coin, no matter what, any rubbing shows marks. any cleaning using a silver or copper cleaner removes some of the metal and destroys any value of the coin.If you want to see this in action, get a new penny, and rub it! there you will see scratches in the field, drop it in metal cleaner, note the change in it.
Coins such as yours IF graded will come back in a body bag anyway marked ENVIRONMENTAL DAMAGE(Corrosion)
Cleaning of any sort gives copper a unnatural appearance.
You may be able to get some image by putting a piece of paper and rubbing a pencil over the coin lightly, such as they do headstones. You just may get an image. I know that in buying Large cent coins especially the flowing hair cents in the 1700's they used bad copper and the planchets were porous. I have seen many uncirculated of these coins in really good shape for wear(uncirculated), but are corroded from being in the ground.Dropping the coin value. Generally only a real rare coin will be worth a lot if it is damaged or cleaned.

[turkeytail]

Large cents are my favorites! :cheer: