why are you cleaning coins??? reduces value!! NO???

[sayvor]

Another post made me think of this.....

I know numismatists would hate any coin cleaned, improperly cleaned especially. Why do people like cleaning them?? Does not make sense to me, if anything is worth only melt value, why waste time and energy and money on salt even? If it is a rare coin, why not send it to be properly cleaned at a coin conservator or NGC that does proper cleaning services. If it's just melt 90% silver works for me, I would take truck loads of dirty filthy coins to be smelted the instant I got em.

HH

Sayvor

 

[Elton]

n/t

 

[sayvor]

I guess, that is your choice, rarity must not really be a concern then. If i found a 1909 wheat vdb s I would definitely bring it to a conservator as $50-700 for a penny is up my alley, not a shiney worthless one. that's just me. Just shoving my 2 sense out in the world. I am a fine jeweler and diamond maven, Rarity is just my thing.

When I was a kid, my dad was a fool to let me play with his coin collection as I cleaned an old Morgan up so shiney, he taught me a lesson. From that day on, I learned never ever shine a coin up, by doing so one removes the finest layers of it's natural state from the mint, that can never be put back. I learned to LOVE filth, that's why money is dirty and I like it a lot. Jut for the record..... Paper money, you know where that comes from? the cotton plant, right, where does the cotton plant grow? Dirt, right? So people work for money, right?? In other words, people work for dirt!!!! I on the other hand love to work for Metal, which can buy me a house made of wood, where does wood come from? Trees, where do trees come from? DIRT!!!! LOL it's a crazy world we live in. I guess my next home will be made of bricks and alluminum or rocks.... Enjoy your shiney coins. NO harm done.

 

[GKMan]

Like Elton said.. If I thought I had a coin worth thousands then I might send it away to be professionally cleaned. Otherwise I plan on keeping them forever and don't want to display a pile of dirty coins.
I am a detectorist that like many others isn't in it for the monetary value of what I find.

 

[Elton]

Not saying it will not happen to some of us..just saying it's rare....

As for your outlook on life..It's a little different than mine. That said hey..what ever your into is fine with me... Enjoy your dirty coins "No harm Done !! ..

 

[Robert2300]

I don't understand why people set the DO NOT CLEAN rule in the first place.
I happen to LIKE clean looking coins. The idea not to clean OLD coins seems
arbitrary to me and has no real purpose.

 

[KinTN]

Hahaha. If I ever find a rare one, I'll definitely have it professionally cleaned, graded, and displayed. Until then, the thousands of clad and common dates get tumbled clean as necessary.

When folks here talk about cleaning coins, it is assumed that its not rare coins that we are talking about. Rare means Rare.


(fwiw, I tumble all my recent dates and at the end of the year feed them into the coin counter at my bank. I take the proceeds and buy junk silver coins, while telling myself that "I found this much silver this year!")

 

[azsh07]

Atleast here in the northeast...most copper coins cannot be ID'ed until they are cleaned. I know some people wont clean them and so they just have a chunk of junk copper. If a coin is so covered in crud it is nothing more than a disc.
You can't send every coin dug to be cleaned....like Elton said..most are common coins.

Now silver I think is rarely cleaned by most people. Silver usually comes up clean enough you can ID the coin and if it needs a little cleaning just running water and easy finger rubbing will do it.

Again most of my cleaned coins are coppers....and here I clean just enough to ID it and get a date....is it a key date...yes or no. From there a decision is made on where to go from there.

I think also the notion we clean coins brings up visions of silver cleaner or brasso or some harsh methods of shining coins. When in reality it is mostly removing enough crud to ID the coins.

Some parts of the country the copper coins just have a patina and no one would clean a nice patina copper coin...or should not. But IH's or LC's so thick with green crud that it is just a round sisc.....well...again until you do enough cleaning to ID it...you have basically squat.

Methods used are personal...I use a soft brass brush on severely cruddy coppers....some use heated peroxide...and I will too sometimes...others water and a toothpick....just depends on severity of crud....but here in New England sometimes ( many times) they are just so toasted cleaning has no affect on value...they are already long gone.

So I think a little perspective on what is truly meant by cleaning has to be taken into count.

Last....these are dug coins and as such do not carry a premium like other coins...unless they come out of the ground in real nice shape....and out of the hundreds of coppers I have dug in 30 years only a rare few are like that. Most are shot...the ones that are still identifiable usually show signs of being dug and so are graded as such and again..cleaning is NOT that major points deduction.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

There was a story of an east coast hunter, who ....... after many years of hunting .... had gotten a fair handful of large cents in his collections. One day he went through the coin book, and decided that a few of them, based on the date, and the details he could make out "should be worth some money". So he decided he would take them in to coin-collector store, and see what they'd offer him. He puts 6 or 7 of his better date/condition large cents on the counter. The dealer looks at each one with his loop, and studiously studies the coin book guide to compare. And one by one, he offers the guy a mere pittance! When the md'r objected and tried to point out the details on the coins, the fact of the better dates, etc...., the dealer laughed and said: "But your coins are all dirty and cruddy. Thus there's no way we'd offer you those book prices".

When the md'r heard the dealer give that reason, he replied: "Oh, so if I clean them up, THEN you guys can offer me more money?" When the coin dealer heard that, he BRISTLED with disdain, and said: "NEVER NEVER clean coins. If you did that, then for SURE we'd offer you even less, and would not even want them. It's a no-no to ever 'clean coins' "

So the md'r, dejected and sad, gathered up his coins and left the store Once home, he figured that as long as they're not worth much, he might as well clean them for *just* his own home display trays. He studied all the various ways and methods of cleaning old copper coins. He experimented with various methods on worthless IH's and the common worn large cents he had. Finally, after much practice and study, he settled on the method that left the least trace of any presence, yet lifted dirt, and revealed detail, without evidence of effort. I forget which method it was.

A year or so later, when he was all done, and he had his coins in his trays, he decided he'd try again to see if the coins had any value. He took the SAME 6 or 7 coins over to the SAME dealer's store. When he entered, he could see it was the same counter clerk who had waited on him a year earlier. The clerk apparently didn't recognize the man, yet the md'r could recall that this was the same clerk. The md'r did not remind the clerk of their earlier meeting, and instead, just put the same coins (now cleaned) on the counter. And again, the clerk pulls out his loop, and compares each one to the book guides. THIS TIME, one-by-one, the clerk offered much better offers than the previous time.

So you see, the old addage of "never clean your coins" isn't necessarily true. The old addage was probably born out of horror stories of someone "cleaning grandmas gold coins with ajax", etc.... But as you can see, if done right, it can actually add value, to some of the stuff we md'rs find, that admittedly isn't worth much in the condition we find them in (caked and colored, etc...)

 

[Bucksport]

Scott and Tom, awesome info from a few seasoned vets

 

[sayvor]

Finally,,, quickly too ... conversation with strangers that have similar interests. Glad the topic was considered to be not buried under, pun intended.
If everyone contributes some ingredients, the soup tastes better.
Eric

 

[BarberBill]

I don't have any old coins worth much,unfortunatley. I do tumble my common clad finds until they're clean and presentable, then roll them or spend them.
BB