What Would You Do With This V Nickel Update Before And After

delaner
I checked out your thread, that looks like a very interesting coin. I know nothing about that coin and in no way could tell you how to clean it or not .. or even if you should.

Also I do not want to be known as an advocate for cleaning coins. I think it should be a decision
each person should make for themselves, and in my opinion, only on coins that are so bad, like ones that would not be graded by TPG because of damage or corrosion.

From my experience and from reading many threads on here, I know that different coins react differently with each cleaning process. And I am sure if I had a coin that had good value that I would not clean it.

As far as the 1908 nickel, I had it in the vinegar for 2 or 3 weeks, checking it everyday. Changing the vinegar every couple days.

I have cleaned other coins, I would have to say coins this bad most often do not turn out as good as that 1908.

That's pretty nice for a dug coin. My dug Buffalos and the one V I've found were in such rough shape I didn't have to worry about cleaning hurting it. I wonder if a short vinegar dip (a few hours) might give you the best balance of removing some of that discoloration without affecting the grade of the coin.

I see a couple people are giving the "don't clean" advice as a blanket statement about coins. While it is debatable if this particular coin should be cleaned, I find it very misleading to say NEVER clean a coin. To me that is advice for a new numismatist to keep them from running off half cocked and ruining their collection. I'd say very, very few coins should be cleaned, and most of those shouldn't get anything worse done to it than an acetone rinse or a dip in olive oil.

There is a big exception to the cleaning rules though. Dug coins (primarily from metal detecting). These coins have been sitting in the ground for 50, 100, 200 years or more. In Europe they still find 2000 year old coins! When exposed to moist soil (which has many dissolved salts and minerals) for years and years nasty things happen to metal. Some coins are unrecognizable due to the covering of corrosion developed over the years. A good and proper cleaning can restore value to them. Check out this website to see some good examples. http://metaldetectingworld.com/clea...n_coin.shtml

Cool - so noted! Thanks, Saruma! Based on what you're saying (and a hunch) I'll leave my crown alone. ; )

That looks tons better!

NICE!! I have a 1901 with the same problem... I had no idea vinegar could do that...

It was in for about a week. I changed the vinegar every other day.

You really have to keep checking the coin, I think it could get bad, if left in to long.
This is not really something I would recommend someone doing, I have only been doing it to coins like this that I found metal detecting. Ones that have little or no value, but look better if cleaned up a little bit.

That definitely looks better! The surfaces look much less porous too. Looking at the coin in hand, did it seem to reduce the porosity? Congrats!