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 Replies: 19 / Views: 3,233 |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
3540 Posts |
Received some 1943 steel cents in a small lot of Wheats that I purchased. Must be close to 200, but they are all in various forms of rustosis, unfortunately. So, for the past two months, these were soaking in olive oil in a zip lock bag. Rinsed with some hot water, dried on paper towels, and now these are in my brass tumbler (reloading) with medium corn cob. Figure I am not ruining anything, so why not try? The worst part about this lot, a lot of these were UNC! Will post pictures after the corn cob has it's way.  |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1721 Posts |
Good luck. I'm conducting an experiment on a nasty Buffalo nickel. I won't have results for a few weeks, maybe longer. |
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
36724 Posts |
WD-40 was designed to attack rust. You might try some on the rusty coins.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
594 Posts |
And after you've cleaned these, they will only be worth at tops, 1 cent each IMO. Olive oil, corn cobs, WD-40? What are you thinking? About the only thing acceptable to use in the "Preservation" of coins is Acetone. Everything else renders the coin as "cleaned" and is immediately devalued. Go ahead and experiment if you like losing money.
Edited by KenRingold
10/28/2012 11:59 am
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Pillar of the Community
614 Posts |
There is a point when cleaning coins goes from damaging to helping. I am pretty sure that cleaning these coins would be helping them. To be honest, Id like a cleaned coin where I can see a design as apposed to a MS coin where I csnt see anything.
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
36724 Posts |
We are talking about rusty steel coins here, so yes, cleaning will help them more than hurt them as tzarmarko said. They are already junk status so anything will improve them and they will be worth more than .01 cent. Acetone does absolutely nothing for rust.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4897 Posts |
 Face at best anyway...well, maybe 2 cents each... experiment a little....post different results here. I would try the WD40 first.... Edited by amida17
10/28/2012 1:47 pm
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1721 Posts |
I don't advocate cleaning a coin, but at some point a coin could look so bad that helping it could never hurt it. Not buffing or shining just soaking. As for value, it's what ever somebody is willing to pay. I've seen dealers have a 'Dollar Each Box' at a show and the total value of all the coins in the box is about a dollar. There will always be some bargain hunter who goes through that box and spends 6 dollars. I've brought my metal detecting junk box to a show and sold about 20 dollars of twisted, broken pieces of ferrous metal at 1 dollar each. Those dollars add up  . |
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
3540 Posts |
These are junk...literally.
Not sure if all of you know, but the active ingredient in WD40 is.....fish oil.
Yes, I will keep on with my restoration endeavors on this pile of cents.
Of note, my ultimate goal, distribute these to members of the coin club, so they may be returned to circulation.
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Pillar of the Community
2223 Posts |
Good luck with the test, let us know the results! Oh, don't forget...  Edited by southsav
10/28/2012 6:57 pm
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Pillar of the Community
United States
8516 Posts |
Yes pics ! Can't wait to see what the outcome might be.  Oregon coin geek.....*** GO BEAVS ! ! ! ***
Edited by 52Raymo
10/29/2012 11:35 am
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Bedrock of the Community
13014 Posts |
I agree with everyone else, cleaning these does no harm. They were worth face value more than likely at that point. I would much rather have a cleaned war cent than a rusted one unless you can tell me some cool story about it rusting from the salt water as it traveled across the atlantic, if you tell me it rusted basically any other way clean away
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Pillar of the Community
United States
3755 Posts |
Quote:
And after you've cleaned these, they will only be worth at tops, 1 cent each IMO. Olive oil, corn cobs, WD-40? What are you thinking? About the only thing acceptable to use in the "Preservation" of coins is Acetone. Everything else renders the coin as "cleaned" and is immediately devalued. Go ahead and experiment if you like losing money.
Gotta love it when a perfectly good high handed scolding is wasted. Dude! These coins are RUSTED. You think they were worth more than a penny to start?  In this case everything acloco is doing will only help these poor guys. ac, definitely post pics and lets see how they look. Because the olive oil didnt seem to do much. |
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Valued Member
United States
100 Posts |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
950 Posts |
WOW! that lemon juice one looks great! I will have to try that on some of my turd-ish ones.
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New Member
United States
35 Posts |
Nice! Time to soak pennies. Not just steel but oxidized Indian cents. One hour for copper, all night for steel says one poster. |
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Replies: 19 / Views: 3,233 |
Posted 10/27/2012 8:12 pm
