Is the baking soda and lemon method for cleaning coins a good idea?

[Roscue2]

A few months ago I found a wheatie while visiting CA. Once I showed my uncle the coin he promptly told me he knew how to shine it up. I was skeptical, but I didn't see any harm in him cleaning it. Well, after he finished cleaning it I was amazed to see how good it looked. Still, I waited to see what it looked like once it had dried completely. The only thing that I noticed that was wrong with the penny was 1 or 2 spots of lighter color. After observing this I went back to my chest of good finds and pulled out another wheatie. I repeated the process and found that there were, once again, there were a few discolored spots on the penny. Is using this method to clean copper coin a good or bad idea? I know that lemon juice is an acid, but it doesn't seem to cause much damage to copper coin.

 

[Joel-Winnipeg]

Keepers likely should not be cleaned that way.The acid is too agressive and will ruin the patina of the coin surface .
Use toothpaste and brush litely try not to mark up the coins.
You could also soak the keepers in olive oil for a period of time

 

[SteveP(NH)]

If you are just cleaning common date wheaties so they look nice for your own collection why not - just make sure to complete wash the chemicals off so they don't continue to eat at the coin afterwards.

If you find one of the valuable wheaties that you might want to try and sell to a numismatist (1909-S, 1914-D, 1924-D, 1931-S) then you should not try to clean it all except to run water over it to rinse off of the dirt. Any sort of cleaning you do to it that involves brushing it or putting chemicals on its surface will leave tell tale signs that are pretty easy to spot with a decent loupe and you will cut the value in half.

Also how shiny a coin is isn't nearly as important as how much wear the coin has on it and if you shine up a worn coin it will stick out like a sore thumb in a decent coin collection and no one will want it.