Removing dirt and grime from Pennies

[claudewill1]

Hi,
I was wondering if there is any safe method of removing dirt and grime from say, wheat cents, without damaging the coin?

I have found some RPMs and other varieties that have a lot of dirt and stuff around the dates, text, and other devices.

Thank you,


Claude J Will

[Paul]

If..................... you are cleaning out Mintmark's to assess whether they are a RPM or not, I would recommend using a "Quill"
:eureka:
....... to pick at the crud, almost like surgery

This is what I use hugeeyes

[claudewill1]

Yes, that is the reason I want to do it. There are some coins in the thousands of wheat cents I go through that I just can't be 100% sure due to stuff on the coin, or I know there's an RPM, but there's so much stuff over the coin it's not even worth keeping.

Thank you

Claude J Will

[Paul]

You will also need to cross check and confirm the known die markers for each RPM that you find

[claudewill1]

Yes, I am aware of that, I use doubledie.com and coppercoins.com.

[Earle42]

Agreed with the quill idea. But I use a porcupine quill as they are soft enough not to mark the coin and can be very tiny in diameter. Some even are small enough to scoop the gunk out of the center of a D mint mark.
Although sometimes a small grain of gunk can get under the tip and put a small scratch, so just be careful.

Porcupine quills are inexpensive on eBay if you do not have a local neighborhood donor to pluck them from (yup - that's where mine came from...roadkill!). widegrin

[Jsul77798]

I try to restrain myself from messing around doing any type of cleaning but when I need to for IDing Rpms etc as stated, ive used a toothpick sanded down to the sharpest point possible, as well as random pieces of plastic also sharpened to a point. Then ill go at the gunk only to the extent necessary. No more. As far as I can tell, theres been no "damage" done. A porcupine quill would be a great idea too though if ya could find one....

[Earle42]

Porky quills - cheap! :thumbsup:
https://tinyurl.com/yydxxdj2

[Jack Bee Nimble]

I have used Dawn dish soap to clean grime from coins and haven't seen where it has damaged them in any way. I didn't even notice any change in luster. I don't send my coins in for grading and the ones that I've cleaned haven't been expensive coins. I've done it to modern Kennedy halves and one Silver Eagle that I like to show to the kids/grandkids, etc. It gets a bit grimy and a little Dawn and she looks nearly as good as new again.

[Earle42]

As long as you are not rubbing the surface (wearing the surface details) or removing surface metal (physically or chemically), then taking dirt off of a coin will not hurt the numismatic value.

[leticia.zaragoza]

I got same problem!
I will try to find Quills thx for sharing
Am new & don't have lot knowledge,just collect coins