you old timers may know about the tater coin cleaning

[ojm bc]

Sometimes you will come across more corroded copper or bronze coins, particularly if you are a metal detector hobbyist like I am. When a coin is buried and receives environmental damage like pitting, the process is usually irreversible, but I have another trick that can sometimes help their appearance, if only a little bit. Cut a slit into a raw potato, and stick the coin inside. Leave it in the potato overnight. When you break open the potato the next day, you'll likely find that the starch in it has pulled a surprising amount of blackish-green gunk right off the surface of the coin!

The "Tater Trick" is really only for miserably crusty coins, though, and produces mixed results. It can sometimes change a coin's color somewhat, but if you started with a crusty, corroded coin to begin with, you haven't got a lot to lose, and a potato should do no additional harm. I often will do the "Tater Trick", followed by light brushing or rubbing, and then repeat the process, doing a Vaseline rub as the final treatment. I once posted this trick on a metal detecting forum and many folks tried it successfully. A few reported no success with it at all- that happens sometimes. One complained it did nothing to help his silver coins, though I had only recommended the trick for copper and bronze.

"from another post"

Here are my finds from today, two old pioneer logging day axes, and went back to same spot and came home with another 1905 IH in even better shape... hh oj/bc ps the coins and axes were nearby.

 

[Royal]

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[Micheal_R]

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[George-CT]

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[Royal]

in the early years of my detecting, so I will not tell you. You would either say, "Neat idea, I would have never thought of that" or "That stupid SOB! He should be committed!"

 

[Kelley (Texas)]

Debbie has a bag of potatoes in the pantry and I think I will get one of them and try to see what it will do in cleaning up one of my old corroded coins. Thanks for the tip. Kelley (Texas)

 

[ojm bc]

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[ojm bc]

Back in the day...Miners would cook their black gold (sand) in a potato with mercury.. when the potato was removed from the fire and opened,..... revealing a glob of gold inside........

I will try it right now for an experiment...

 

[ojm bc]

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[Kelley (Texas)]

a gob of gold...what happened to the black sand? Kelley (Texas)

 

[ojm bc]

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[Wayne in BC]

Mercury fumes will kill you quick! Some would put a metal pan with gold filled mercury on the stove overnight and not wake up.
Stay downwind of the fumes, or better still retort it in a closed system.

 

[ojm bc]

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[Micheal_R]

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[Wayne in BC]

The mercury was added to the sluicebox or gold pan and gold will amalgamate with mercury, holding it within. The black sands, which are mostly made up of iron, eg magnetite, hematite, will not amalgamate with mercury and are left behind. The globs of mercury which are now much larger and more like putty than normal mercury due to their load of gold are then kept and burned to expose the gold. In the old days it was the only way they knew to efficiently capture the fine gold dust.

 

[Kelley (Texas)]

Is there any use for the left over black sand? Kelley (Texas)

 

[Wayne in BC]

it is usually good for nothing unless it has a lot of ultra fine gold or minerals such as the Platinum group. Then it can be sold to a refinery. Very few areas have enough to make it worthwhile but there are some where a five gallon pail of black sand can be worth a few hundred dollars. Keeping in mind that it takes a very long time to fill a pail with super concentrated material by panning or even hand sluicing.
Some of the larger sluicing dredging operations could do it much quicker but that is expensive equipment to buy and run and it is usually more profitable to stick with the gold.

There is a common name for it amongst miners, "leaverite", meaning leaverite where you found it