Coin Cleaning - Ultrasonic or Tumbler Best ?

[E-Trac-Ohio]

Hi Guys, I have a lot of clad and some silver coins that are not that valuable - that I dug that need to be cleaned.
I wanted to ask if an Ultra Sonic Cleaner would do a good job of cleaning the coins or if I should just get a Tumbler ?
Seems like the Ultra Sonic machines have a very short cycle time vs tumbling for approx. 24 hrs.
What do you think ?

Thanks in advance ! --- Mark

 

[pescadore]

I am anxious to here some responses here. I had an ultrasonic machine that was one of those used to clean dentures and I did not have very good luck with it. I may have not had the right solution or something so maybe we can get some pointers. I have used a tumbler with good success and through my limited experience would say that it was the better of the two.

 

[Aurium]

I like the tumbler best, with all the dirt, corrosion etc on the coins it's better to just knock it off with some form of mild tumbling. One guy I know uses a cup of gravel (peastone size), a cap full of pine sol, a couple drops of dish detergent, and probably 2-3 cups of water. This seems to knock the dirt off, and polish them a bit as well. (kind of a peening process with the gravel) The sonic stuff just doesn't have enough power.

 

[Rick(ND)]

For the clad and the new pennies copper and zinc I find tumbling works the best. Just separate the copper from the clad and tumble separate and I use some aquarium gravel and some real lemon juice and water and can tumble pennies in a hour that look great. Clad will take longer and sometimes I leave the soak in the tumbler over night and turn on for a couple hours. The real bad clad I cant get real clean with the lemon juice I will tumble that separate with little muratic acid and water for about 45 minutes and rinse and put back with a little lemon juice for about half hour and many will look better than new.
I also got a Ultra sonic cleaner that works good for jewelry, but not for coins. On my Wheaties I use a vibrating tumbler and use some water and gravel with a little cleaner to get most dirt off the run them in crushed walnut shells so they come out looking natural and not too clean.

 

[UK Brian]

The tumbler cleans well but destroys any historical value. Will also cross contaminate between silver and copper finds so I have one tumbler for each metal.

Ultrasonic cleaners work well for fine objects but most that you see for sale don't have the power. You need 50,000 vibrations per minute as the very minimum. The higher the better. If a unit doesn't heat up cold water in a short time its not up to the job.

The tumbler works out as far faster as you are cleaning a large quantity at one time. I use gravel and finish off tumbling in ordinary sand which puts a better finish on the coins so your not ashamed to spend them.

 

[Monte]

Lortone tumbler, aquarium gravel, a small squirt of dish-soap, and sometimes a teaspoon of Cream of Tarter. I use the dual-barrel tumbler and add a heaping