Help! Can someone tell me what I am doing wrong???

[missmetaldetectingdiva]

This is a pic of a quarter I found in my yard. I know it looks bag. Nice and green and so bad that I can't even decifer the date. I have read and read and read how to clean clad but ALL the clad that comes out of my ground seems beyond repair. I have tried the peroxide method on this quarter and nothing. Still looks bad. On some pennies I found I have soaked them for a few days in dish detergent and I STILL can't even decifer the year or even have them look like they are pennies. Could my soil which is high in sulfur and iron be eating away at the clad?? I am to the point of giving up relic hunting in Wv because the coins just look too bad. I dont seem to have this problem when I go to Maryland to Md but here in my neck of the woods I can't figure out how to clean and polish coins. Here is a bad pic of the quarter that was soaked in perioxd and then run with hot water only to still have it looking greenish.

 

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[mlayers]

use a coin tumbler with fish gravel and a couple of drops of dawn dish soap. Run for about 1 to 1 1/2 hours. Rinse off and it will be good enough to spent at the store......Matt

 

[missmetaldetectingdiva]

So the coin tumbler will do better then just soaking it in dawn I dont get how that premise works. If we are not to rub the coin for fear of damaging the coin, then how is tumbling it in gravel doing a better job then say soaking it

 

[jeff741972]

I usually just rinse em off and stuff em in a roll.

 

[missmetaldetectingdiva]

But the greenish looking coing was AFTER I rinsed it off!!! (and used peroxide)

 

[DKinPA]

Peroxide seems to work much better on copper than clad for me. In answer to your question about the coin tumbler, we use them to clean the common clad coins, not anything that could be of value. Clad is really only worth face value and just has to be made spendable.

I don't know what is causing your coins to be this green but there are other harsh treatments that may help including CLR, The Works...etc. I'd try the tumbler with aquarium gravel and a little dish detergent first. I have also recently tried cutting off a small piece of an SOS pad and throwing that in with the coins and it seems the coins are getting cleaner quicker.

Good Luck!!

Dave

 

[missmetaldetectingdiva]

Ok forget about clad, suppose I found a valuable coin, how would I know if its any value if I can't even read it? I am thinking that if there are any coins of value I definately wont find them in my soil that eats them all up. lol

 

[Mortifercain]

i have heard replacing gravel for glass beads prevents scratching never tryed it tho. here is a link to a site that has most of the info i have read in several places regarding cleaning coins.
http://www.hdwt.net/clean.html

hope this helps

 

[Dano Sverige]

I soak my bad coins (from the beach) in olive oil and or lemon juice for a few days, and then gently poke away whatever i can with a wooden cocktail stick/toothpick, especially to clear a date.
It's not uncommon for us in Europe to soak coins for weeks and even months before they become cleaner, but then a lot of our finds have been in the ground for a thousand years or more.

Have a look around this site on the "coins" forum, or google/youtube "coin cleaning"....you'll find many tips and tricks.

 

[smcdmc]

Ok forget about clad, suppose I found a valuable coin, how would I know if its any value if I can't even read it? I am thinking that if there are any coins of value I definately wont find them in my soil that eats them all up. lol

If it's copper you won't know. If it's clad it's not going to be. And if it's silver it will look much better straight out of the ground than any of your clad and shouldn't be to hard to see a date with just a little soap and water.

 

[missmetaldetectingdiva]

Ok but this is a quarter using soap and water and its still unreadable!!!

 

[jerseyben]

If you dig a silver coin, it will look pretty good (much better than copper) and should still be shiny. If you dig silver, you shouldn't have to do anything other than rinse them in water, maybe some soapy water. If you dig a nickel, it should also look pretty good with most still having a readable date. Basically, if you dig up most "common" dimes or quarters just check to see if they are silver and that is really all you need to worry about. For pennies, there are some rare key dates so those are the only non-silver, non large copper coins I would worry about. For pennies, try to determine if they are indians, wheats, or memorials. Memorials are almost worthless do not waste your time cleaning these. Indians and wheats can be soaked in hot peroxide or a few minutes and then rubbed gently with a Q-tip. Soak the pennies one at a time to avoid contaminating them with the other coin's corrosion. If you dig a "large green disc", it is probably not clad and IS worth taking the time to clean it up like wheats/indians. BTW, no offense to anyone who does this but I cannot figure out why anyone would "tumble" their clad finds...

 

[smcdmc]

Ok but this is a quarter using soap and water and its still unreadable!!!

Then it is not silver and will not be worth any more than .25 cents no matter how clean you get it.

 

[Dwight S]

As others have said, if you find silver, it'll come out of the ground looking a lot better than regular clad. Modern coins, once they've been in the ground, come out looking bad. Copper pennies will likely have a crusty appearance. You can try soaking them for a few days in olive oil and lemon juice to see if you can get some of the crust off to get a date. If the penny is worth anything, stop there. Modern zinc pennies, made since 1983, may come out of the ground corroded, looking like its been chewed on, missing some of the edge.

If you find a common coin, toss it in a tumbler with aquarium gravel, dish soap and water to clean it up. In the end you'll have money that can be spent again. I tumble all my copper/zinc pennies together and my clad nickels, dimes and quarters together. If you mix them, you'll likely get pink colored clad when you finish.

Keep this in mind... the end result of the tumbling will NOT result in bright shiny nickels, dimes and quarters if when you tossed them in they did not have any shine on them. Your green quarter will still have some green, but it will be clean enough to spend.

You can get a fairly inexpensive tumbler at Michaels craft store or at Harbor Freight.

 

[missmetaldetectingdiva]

OK thanks Dwight S that makes alot of scense. I wont even try to keep cleaning this quarter. Now that def sums it all up for me! So now I need to start finding some silver!!!!

 

[Lost2Much]

If it's a Clad, I use a needle-nose pliers to hold the coin against an electric-motor wire brush.
Done in 30 seconds. After all, you can't hurt a junk (clad) coin!

 

[Lowbatts]

If you're spending more in time and money cleaning clad than it is worth at face value, then you can also qualify for a job in Washington and get more money and benefits than you'll need or earn.

Tumble them by the pound, throw out what don't get good enough for the vendoteria. Or save the nasty ones and fill old clay pots with them and bury them in a neighboring state.

 

[Swartzie]

Did you boil the peroxide before using it? I'll put the peroxide in the microwave for about a minute. Take it out and put the coin in for a minute or so. For coppers I'll soak them in olive oil for a half hour or more then rub the crap off. If you find silver it will be shiny straight out of the hole. Don't rub silver or it will scratch. If you find real old silver it will have a dark grayish, black oxide built up on it.

-Swartzie

 

[Dwight S]

Tumble them by the pound, throw out what don't get good enough for the vendoteria. Or save the nasty ones and fill old clay pots with them and bury them in a neighboring state.

I save the nasty ones (including corroded pennies) and use them at the fast food drive thru. They take um... they don't have time to argue...

 

[jerseyben]

You guys put way more thought into clad than I ever would...