Armpits and socks, a definite yes! Coins, not so much! It is best to avoid cleaning all of your collectible coins, but there are some things you can carefully do to improve the appearance of your coins.
Any coin with collectible value needs to be treated with great care. Don’t scrub it, polish it, or use silver polish on it. You want to prevent tiny scratches on its surface, and you don’t want to give a coin an unnatural color or sheen. A valuable copper coin, with wear on its surface, loses most of its value if it’s a bright orange color. Similarly, a Morgan dollar that is so polished that you can use it as a mirror has lost all of its collectible value and is only worth melt value, unless it’s an extremely rare date.
One of the safest and gentlest things you can do is to use some non-abrasive soap and warm water to very lightly bathe a coin. Don’t use the mother-in-law’s Lava! Be very careful in your rubbing of the coin with anything. Even a Q-tip can leave tiny scratches that will harm both the coin and its value. Rinse and air-dry or pat-dry the coin; don’t rub it with a cloth or a paper towel!
For some reason, coins with red nail polish on them are common. Acetone, found in the paint department of Wally-World or a hardware store, is great for taking this off. It is a powerful solvent, though, and you should have good ventilation when using this, and avoid too much contact with your skin. It will also take off paint, varnish, tape residue, and grease and oil. Soak the coins for a few minutes in acetone in a glass or metal container—no plastic. Acetone will dissolve plastic. Rinse and dry after the acetone bath.
Sometimes, we inherit coins that have been in plasticized coin holders, and over time, the poly vinyl chloride in the plastic begins to eat at the coin itself. If you have some of these, your first sign is a green circle in the plastic holder that perfectly tracks the rim of the coin. Many times, PVC damage will give the coin a slick, greasy feel. If you have these, change holders immediately! If the PVC problem has gone on long enough, it can actually pit and eat into the surface of the coin. Acetone is pretty good at helping to clean off the PVC residue. After getting the PVC removed, if the coins are not ruined, use non-plasticized PVC-free flips or Mylar 2X2’s to safely store your coins.
Silver coins, like all silver, can tarnish. Tarnish colors can vary, according to what environment a coin has been stored in. For example, I bought a few coins in a coin purse one time. Inside there were a silver dime and a silver half wrapped in a yellow Kleenex. Both of these coins had turned blue! The sulphur in paper will also affect coins. Old coin albums, the kind where you push a coin into a hole, can tone a coin. It is very common to find album stored coins with a dark circle around them—bullseye toning—with a correctly colored center. The side against the paper back of the hole is all dark. The coin is being affected on both sides by the paper. To remove tarnish or toning from a coin, there are dips you can buy. “E Z est” is one such mild acid dip. Dip a silver coin into it for 5 to 20 seconds, depending on how discolored it is, to brighten the coin. Rinse it well with water, and again, don’t rub it to dry it! Pat gently or air dry both sides.
Metal detectorists find lots of clad coinage that is worth only face value. Occasionally, they find silver coins, too. These methods are all that I recommend for cleaning silver; never put a collectible coin in rock tumbler like a digger might do to clean their clad coinage. A tumbler beats a coin up and ruins its value.
Finally, if you do have a rare and valuable coin, you might want to send it to an expert. NGC grading company operates NCS, or Numismatic Conservation Services, and they will clean the coin and send it over to NGC for grading and encapsulation. This is what happens to most of those old ship wreck recovered gold coins.
This Saturday, August 9, several club members will host a small coin show in the commons area of Heartland Mall, in front of the old Beall’s store. We’ll be there at 10 till about 4. This is a great time to bring in any coins you have questions about. There might be a few coins for sale, and it is a great opportunity to learn more about the coin club. Since it’s also the annual tax-free weekend for school supplies and clothing, you can take a shopping break with us!
And, don’t forget—coin collecting is a fascinating (and sometimes profitable) hobby. Learn more about it at one of our meetings. Visit the Brown County Coin Club on the second Tuesday of each month, at 6:30 pm, at Principally Coins and Metal Detectors, at 3002 Early Blvd, in Early. Meetings provide a great opportunity to learn all about coin collecting. The coin club hopes to see you on August 12 for their next meeting. Call Bill Cooper at 325-642-2128 or me at 325-217-4129 for more information.
