Another Cleaned Coin Story

Nice job.

WOW! NICE

I agree that cleaning a not so rare coin to make it look like yours is much better tnan leaving it a mess. Now just make sure you put it in an album or 2x2 so as to not allow further problems.
If a coin is your coin and no intent on selling it, who cares if cleaned.

I agree that it looks better post-cleaning.
The old toning was pretty ugly.

Hi all; first day posting but I've been posting a LOT. Too much. But this is kind of all fascinating to me. As I explained in a couple other areas, I am new to this all (I do collect I guess but never considered myself a collector). I have two questions for this area. Is it ALWAYS bad to clean coins? Sometimes you can't see the dates of the mint mark on it and cleaning seems to be the only way to get it. 2) if you CAN clean sometimes, when it is good and what do you use to clean it? My last question is about going to banks. I see above someone went and bought 23.00 worth of half dollars. I'd like to collect the Presidential dollars but don't see any in circulation for some reason. I've gotten ONE so far and the clerk was unsure of me wanting it. Can I go into a bank and ask for Presidential dollars and give them paper cash for it? I don't want them mad!

Thanks for the response. I guess some of it is common sense (ie the steel wool and grinding wheel)! There have been some pennies and such I couldn't distinguish the mint mark and had to clean it in order to tell. I don't know about silver coins (how to tell what is and what isn't but I think I have a few that look different coloration and are from teh 50's-60's I think it's more likely those will be). I do have sad story though. My step-dad had a bucket of silver. He'd been saving these coins in a bucket since he was like 11 or 12 years old (so from the 1930's-1940's I guess). It was really heavy and did have very old ciculated coins in it from the 1800's. In addition my brother, sister and I had 100 dollars each in silver dollars, mostly given to us every year by my grandfather who would visit and give us 7 each year for "luck". When my dad passed away, my mother "gave away" the bucket of silver to someone who cleaned out the basement as payment! She didn't even bother to check out the coins. My sister, we found out developed the habit of smoking and pilfered all but 5 or 6 of the silver dollars over a long period of time, cashing them in at a local mom and pop shop for cigarettes! Very sad indeed. I know there were odd coins and because there were a couple hundred of these, goodness knows WHAT was in there. It would have been fun researching it.

Well what do you know, I probably have a few then. I am pretty sure a dime I got the other day was (if something is odd to my eye in any way, I set it aside). I do have a 1952 quarter I was pretty sure was silver it's pretty matte looking etc. Thanks. I am going to study up a little on this stuff. Even though I am not planning to get heavy into it, I want to be savvy enough to recognize if something falls into my lap.