What do you find is the best all round cleaner for coins. I find the copper ones tarnish the worst but handling all coins takes the shine off.

I am really enjoying using coins more and want them to look good.

Interesting you should start this thread today. Just yesterday while sitting at my desk I polished a handful of coins up to a lovely shine by rubbing them vigorously with a pencil eraser.

There are actually metal polishers (comes in a can and looks like cotton) that work just as good if not better than an eraser, but is twenty times easier and faster to use. Try a Hobby Lobby, perhaps even a harware store like Ace or Home Depot. You'll be bling blingin' it in no time!

Use Ketchup.

LOL!!!!!

Actually if you practice with your copper coins for about an hour or so, the moisture from your hands does a fantastic job of shining these coins up! (so you don't have to waste time just rubbing!

:)

Josh

P.S. I use wrights silver creme on my silver coins when they are just....<dank> dirty, otherwise I just use a Jewlers Towel, they work great on all coins. You should be able to get a Jewelers towel at any Jewelry store.

With most metal cleaners/polishers, liquid or paste, there is an abrasive or acid involved that removes the outer oxidized surface. There is a solution that instead reverses the tarnishing process, removing the oxides and sulfurs from the metal without removing the metal itself.

Place aluminum foil in a non-metallic pan or soup bowl of some sort (like one of those Pyrex dishes or porcelain). Put in a few spoons of baking soda, and place the object to be cleaned in good contact with the foil. Add boiling water, making sure to not break the contact between the foil and the object to be cleaned. There will be the unpleasant odor of eggs gone bad, and after a few minutes, the objects will no longer have tarnish on them. Then one can rinse the items under the tap to remove the baking soda, dry them, and then use one of those treated dry silver-polishing cloths to bring out the luster.

This method makes a battery out of the metals, allowing the tarnish to travel from the silver to the aluminum while leaving the silver behind. After you remove the aluminum foil, you'll see the deposited oxidation on it.

Good luck!

Surprisingly, toothpaste works well. It keeps most of the patina, while getting rid of the bulk of the tarnish. I find that silver polish will shine the coins up too much.

-- Frank

I have found that TarnX has worked best with my coins. You can use it on Sterling Silver, Silver Plate, Platinum, Copper, and Gold. I have used it to clean my Centavo of the Scotch and Soda and it turns it from an almost rust color to a rich gold.

Yeah, TarnX sounds so much better than the vinegar and water solution that was recommended in my scotch and soda set.

To clean copper coins, They are INSTANTLY cleaned with salt and lemon juice. I use tooth paste for my steel coins and Bon Ami for jumbos.

Any ideas on C/S coins? I want the silver side shiny but the copper side as dark as possible.

Dan,

When I used to perform effects using a C/S coin, I simply took a tarnished C/S coin I had and polished only the silver side. When the silver side became dull with use, I'd again polish only that side. I did this for the same reason I suspect you want to do this -- the more contrast there is between the two sides, the more striking the transposition. This is particularly important when performing in low lighting conditions, for example in bars.

I no longer use a C/S coin because I wanted even more contrast. For that reason, I now use a Chinatown Half (with flesh in----) because I like the more pronounced contrast between a coin that's solid and a coin that has a hole in it.

Larry D.

P.S. - I've tried A LOT of different types of metal polish and the ABSOLUTE BEST polish I found is one that was recommended to me by a professional metal worker. I've kept it a secret for a long time (because I was going to market it as part of an effect), but what the heck, I'll share it with my Café friends. The product is called "Tarnite" metal polish.

I cleaned a load of old English pennies. Having cleaned them, I wanted to polish them up a bit. Of the items/polishes that I tried, far and away the best was a Goddard's Long Term Silver Polish Cloth.

I now keep one of those cloths just for my coins. It's good on silver coins, but it's remarkably good on copper coins.

Dave

I like to use "Brasso" metal polish. It works fast and easy.

Never soak your "Cigarette Thru Quarter" inside a container of "TarnX." I tried it a couple of times. Each time it makes the spring break.

I tend to use Brasso as well (even on the Silver)....but when I want a quick fix I use white eraser (not pink)....which cuts back on the residue and really gets in the cracks....

dynamike,
You shouldn't leave a coin in Tarn-x. You should just put some on a cloth or cotton ball and wipe it and wash it off with warm water. Maybe you had some different Tarn-x thing but it said not to leave in contact for over 3 minutes

I use toothpaste and a Dremel Tool with a moderately soft brush to polish all of my coins very quickly. I even have a wood block with a English penny/Half Dollar sized depression to hold them while I buff them out. I then use neutral Kiwi brand shoe polish on a different dremel brush to seal in the lustre.

I wish you would have told me before I tried it.

Sorry to hear that dynamike.
Did anything happen other than the spring breaking?
TJ