A Great Method For Cleaning Your Buffalo/Shield Nickels!

Indianhead Jones

Hero Member
Jul 28, 2008
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Revere, Massachusetts (5 Miles North of Boston)
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White's Eagle Spectrum/White's Eagle II
Here's a method for cleaning your Buffalo/Shield nickels that will amaze you!

1. Clean the coins with dish detergent and an old toothbrush to remove dirt.

2. Get a small glass, ceramic or plastic dish (NOT METAL!)

3. Pour in enough Worcestershire Sauce (NOT STEAK SAUCE!) to cover the coin, and cover the container. Use plastic wrap and cover tightly if the container doesn't have it's own cover.

4. Allow to soak overnight. The next morning, rinse the coin and check the progress. The coin will be finished when it's a nice slate or silver color. If the nickel is still brown or red in color, return it to the solution, and wrap or cover it again, and allow it to soak overnight. When one side is cleaned, soak it again with the dirty side facing up, and rinse the next morning. WARNING!...DO NOT ALLOW THE SOLUTION TO DRY UP ON YOUR NICKELS...A ROCK-HARD CRUST WILL FORM THAT WILL BE DIFFICULT OR IMPOSSIBLE TO REMOVE!!

5. Repeat the soaking/rinsing process each day until you have a beautiful Buffalo nickel!! This process will often bring out a hidden date on the nickels where it appeared flat before the soaking process!!

I've had tremendous results with this method, and you simply won't believe how gorgeous the come out! You'll have a herd of nice buffaloes that you'll be proud to display!

Try this method, and post pics of your Buffaloes before/after this method...let's see what results you all have!

Please Note: My camera is not working at present, so I can't post before/after pics until it's repaired!

Good Luck to all in your treasure-hunting quests!

Larry G.
 

Look for the "It's no banner, but it's MY best find" post in Best Finds forum,
the shot of it before anything was done with it is there. That's where I'll also post the after shot
 

Here's another method I use for cleaning red colored buffalos/V's.

Try a solution of distilled white vinegar and salt. Dissolve some salt in the vinegar, place the nickel in this solution til the red coloring is gone (about an hour or two). Take the coin out of the solution and rub it between your fingers with a little moistened baking soda. Repeat if some of the red coloring is still on the coin.

Here's one of my V's that I cleaned using this method. I've never tried the Worcestershire sauce method. I'll try it out next time.

HH,
CAPTN SE
Dan
 

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UHmmm...I would think the salt in any product would be harmful to a coin in the long run, even if you got most of it off, do you really get it ALL off?
 

CowboyKolo said:
UHmmm...I would think the salt in any product would be harmful to a coin in the long run, even if you got most of it off, do you really get it ALL off?

i see what you are saying, but a cruddy red nickel has kinda lost its value anyway (unless of course its a rare coin). it couldnt hurt it any more than the soil did in my opinion.
 

Salt doesn't stay on a coin after it has been washed with distilled water. Salt dissolves easily in water. :icon_scratch:

However the damage it leaves on coins over a long period of time(years) is noticeable. We're only talking about an hour or so of saturation, then removing the salt by washing.
Red colored nickels are a sign that the ground minerals/moisture already damaged it. There will be fine pitting underneath the red color once you remove the tarnish. There will be no value lost in removing the red color(because there's little value the way it was before ;D), but you will have a more pleasant looking coin to the eyes. :wink:

A picture says a 1000 words.

HH,
CAPTN SE
Dan
 

JOHN_DOE said:
Indianhead Jones said:
Try this method, and post pics of your Buffaloes before/after this method...let's see what results you all have!

Larry G.
Why not post before and after pics of your buffalos?

Your method works well :thumbsup:
Here's one I did earlier this year. . .

L&P.jpg

Take care,
watercolor
 

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Your method works well :thumbsup:
Here's one I did earlier this year. . .
Take care,
watercolor
[/quote]

I've got a sweet collection of attrective nickels in my finds thanks to this method, Watercolor! Glad you had good results!

Larry
 

Well basically the sauce is made with vinegar, salt and some other stuff so it should work pretty good. I'm going to try it on the only Buff I have found and see how it works.
 

So it's basically the salt and vinegar method...but with a name I can't pronounce or spell...

;D
 

This started cleaning my coin, however I cannot see the image on the coin anymore. I think it is so worn there is no help for mine. But, thank you for the cleaning technique.

Dennis
 

Okay, I ran a little experiment this evening with a few clads I dug up today with the sauce. I plunked one coin of each denomination into it and let it sit for about an hour, hour and a half. Here's the before shot, and the after shot... it's not as noticeable in the pic, but the penny turned a kinda light tan color....
 

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All these methods spinning around in me gulliver :icon_scratch:
 

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