Jackpot! :-)

The fact that you fail to see how it affected the value does not mean the value was not affected.

Kudos to the thread OP for a job well done. It's like I tell people - no paycheck is worth me not being able to lay my head on my pillow and sleep soundly :)

Perhaps. Then again, if someone OWNS property, they really ought to be able to do whatever they want with it... the delicate sensibilities of the "purists" among us notwithstanding.

Who is to say who these will be sold to eventually? If it isn't to a purist, anyone else will appreciate a shiny coin more than one that looks as if it was dug out of the ground somewhere.

Besides... as a chemist, I can EASILY re-age them at any time... and no one without an electron microscope handy would ever know the difference.

Thanks for cleaning your coins. It makes mine more valuable.

No problem. Glad to assist.

Jbuck, well said.

Leave coin cleaning to the professionals:


Your example is exactly the reason why "don't clean your coins" is the rule.

You have a nice painted car, except for some road grime and maybe bug stickum. Would it be OK to brighten it up a bit by taking a handful of gravel in water and polishing it down to the shiny original metal?

If you're looking at me like I'm crazy, consider the relative size of a coin and a car hood. Magnify the coin surface a few hundred times so they're equal, and that's exactly what the scratches from baking soda will look like. Heck, it'll grind the crud off your teeth, what'll you think it will do to soft silver or copper?

I'll betcha nickel you weren't talking about making a paste and letting the coin sit in it, then washing it off in running water, were you? No, you were gonna grind away and polish the coin's surface. Polish is another term for tiny scratches reflecting light. Take a magnifier to a polished piece of silverware if you doubt me.

Your suggestion is worse than tarn-x. Tarn-x reacts chemically with the coin surface, baking soda scratches it. A more obvious version (actually recommended in the 50s) is the scratches left by an eraser. One day, a customer spent a couple hours in a coin dealer's parking lot, "cleaning" his coins before selling them. Guess he figured the dealer couldn't afford his own eraser.

I'm glad I wasn't the one who had to tell him he erased $10,000 worth of collector value an hour.

Only if you consider oxygen that has bonded to the Ag as "the surface". It wasn't there when the coins were made. Nature added it afterwards.



Therein lies the value of owning bullion coins and not numismatic coins. My coins have little to no numismatic value, so if I cut their numismatic value in half via some VERY careful cleaning, so be it. I can afford the penny or two lost on each one.

True, the O[sub]2[/sub] wasn't there, but the Ag was. When you break the bond that created the tarnish, what happens to the silver? If you wonder, take a look in a used jar of Jewlustre.