Cleaning extremely dirty copper pennies

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Cleaning extremely dirty copper pennies

Postby scyther » Wed Mar 28, 2012 3:42 pm

Greetings, people of Realcent.

I just started hoarding copper pennies a few days ago (very small scale- I only have a few hundred- but better than nothing right?) and I noticed that some of them are so covered in grime that I can't even read the dates. Some are green, some appear to be covered in sticky tac, and some are just really dirty. So my questions are:

1. Should I clean them? I know cleaning coins can make them less valuable, but obviously these have no numismatic value anyway, so that's not an issue. But do they need to be cleaned? It seems like there's enough non-coin material stuck to them that it could affect their melt value. Or is that okay?

2. How should I clean them? I don't really want to go through scrubbing and peeling by hand if they're only worth one cent each. Can I just put them in bleach or something? Or will that eat away at the copper?
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Re: Cleaning extremely dirty copper pennies

Postby Madwest » Wed Mar 28, 2012 4:23 pm

Don't use chlorine bleach. That will coat the coin in copper chloride - a worse problem than the copper oxide you are trying to clean.

If you want to clean them for storage just for the melt value, you can soak them in just about any solvent to remove the stickiness. Stir with a wooden spoon. With enough agitation, some of the green corrosion might even loosen and rinse away. If you want them to shine, throw them in a tumbler (after they're dry from the solvent).
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Re: Cleaning extremely dirty copper pennies

Postby galenrog » Wed Mar 28, 2012 5:30 pm

Any good tumbler will do the trick. Tumble coins with a little soap to remove surface gunk, rinse, then dry thoroughly and then dry again. Did I mention to make sure the coins are dry before storing? A small desiccant pack in your airtight container of choice will keep your now clean coins from catching almost any kind of coin cancer once this is done. I keep mine in a safe, loose in boxes and bags, with a 20 watt heat stick to keep everything dry and comfortable for all my little metal friends
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Re: Cleaning extremely dirty copper pennies

Postby jacer333 » Wed Mar 28, 2012 9:49 pm

Welcome, glad to have you aboard!

I know a lot of guys care more about the cleanliness of their coins than I do...I throw all of my coppers together. Some are bright BU's and some are ugly abes, but it evens out that way, right?
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Re: Cleaning extremely dirty copper pennies

Postby galenrog » Wed Mar 28, 2012 10:32 pm

To each his own on this subject. I do not clean even 1% of the coins I stack, but I do clean the worst of them, if there is no numismatic value in those specific coins. The coin guys I trade with locally do not really care as long as I pre-screen for dates and types they are after. I also clean gunky and cancer ridden coins destined to return to the wild. Kind of like rehabing an oil soaked sea bird. Clean it up, give it some love and return it to it's natural life.
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Re: Cleaning extremely dirty copper pennies

Postby Rosco » Wed Mar 28, 2012 11:23 pm

I agree rock tumbler a very little dish soap and pea gravel or quarter minus rock or aquarium gravel :o
dump on stainless or plastic coarse screen
rinse an rinse again then separate coin from gravel save the larger gravel not sand for next time
we have Laundry sink in garage
I spread the coin on plastic food service trays an let dry if tray has rough surface both sides of coin will dry in Garage fine
recheck the dates then store I'm using cent wrappers an coin boxes
I use a very small tumbler for up to 400 cents if not all are clean just run those again
light load is 75 cents
takes 3 to 4 hours tumbling then dry over night
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Re: Cleaning extremely dirty copper pennies

Postby scyther » Thu Mar 29, 2012 6:34 pm

Thanks for your responses. I don't have a tumbler so I used water and lemon juice. It worked pretty well.

But do you think they need to be cleaned? For melting, would it be a problem if a lot of stuff is stuck to the pennies, or would they be able to just melt them and have the gunk burn off or separate out on its own?

Just wondering if I should save myself the effort in the future.
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Re: Cleaning extremely dirty copper pennies

Postby hammerrob » Thu Mar 29, 2012 10:06 pm

Any penny that's so gunky that I'm tempted to clean it gets tossed with the zincs ... even if it's copper. I guess I've saved plenty of pennies that were only moderately dirty, and I'm not at all worried about them. They recycle copper pipe and who knows what kind of gunk is lurking inside of them. I'd begin to worry about my sanity if I was even considering investing time cleaning pennies. If you need something to fill your time sort, don't clean!
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Re: Cleaning extremely dirty copper pennies

Postby Rosco » Thu Mar 29, 2012 11:11 pm

hammerrob wrote:Any penny that's so gunky that I'm tempted to clean it gets tossed with the zincs ... even if it's copper. I guess I've saved plenty of pennies that were only moderately dirty, and I'm not at all worried about them. They recycle copper pipe and who knows what kind of gunk is lurking inside of them. I'd begin to worry about my sanity if I was even considering investing time cleaning pennies. If you need something to fill your time sort, don't clean!


8-) My dump bank is covered but finding coin to sort means a run to larger city thats fuel an lately at 20% cu not sure it pays :(
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Re: Cleaning extremely dirty copper pennies

Postby penny pretty » Fri Mar 30, 2012 10:35 pm

any penny I cant read date, I toss in jar with 82s. when jar is full I weigh them along with the rest. gram scale I got on ebay for 12 bux works awesome. I will CAREFULLY clean a nice older date with lemon juice.
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Re: Cleaning extremely dirty copper pennies

Postby Numis Pam » Fri Jun 13, 2014 7:13 am

This is an old post but I am wondering if lemon juice is really OK to clean copper cents with? I would think it would damage them too as well as clean them?
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Re: Cleaning extremely dirty copper pennies

Postby scyther » Sat Jun 14, 2014 4:48 pm

Numis Pam wrote:This is an old post but I am wondering if lemon juice is really OK to clean copper cents with? I would think it would damage them too as well as clean them?

It definitely tends to stain them an orange-yellow color. I tend not to use it anymore. Anything worth cleaning is probably worth cleaning with something better. But if you have a bunch of generic coppers that are just covered in crud, it might be worth it to do a batch at a time...
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Re: Cleaning extremely dirty copper pennies

Postby hobo finds » Sat Jun 14, 2014 5:03 pm

If and when we can melt them mine are going with the crud on (more weight)! :lol:
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Re: Cleaning extremely dirty copper pennies

Postby coppernickel » Sat Jun 14, 2014 5:21 pm

First off welcome, good luck sorting.

If they are really that bad then I cleaned them by hand with some dawn dish soap. It cuts the grime really fast.

When they are this bad to begin with a little soap to find the dates helps. When the coin is that dirty and worthless soap is the least of the problem.
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Re: Cleaning extremely dirty copper pennies

Postby realhumancopper » Tue Jul 15, 2014 8:08 am

Hi, does using something as coarse as peas gravel damage the tumbler? I have a very good rock tumbler and would not like to damage it. I know, it's for polishing rocks, but I would just like to be sure. thanks........h
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Re: Cleaning extremely dirty copper pennies

Postby pennysman » Tue Jul 15, 2014 8:45 am

I use a tumbler rated for 3lbs. I fill the tumbler about half full of water, a big squirt of Dawn, about an oz or so of clean sand, and about 150-200 ugly coins. I run this anywhere from 4-8 hours, drain, rinse, spread out on towel and let dry until the next batch is ready. Been running about 3 batchs a day over the last month and cleaned about 15000 coins.

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Re: Cleaning extremely dirty copper pennies

Postby 68Camaro » Tue Jul 15, 2014 11:47 am

pennysman wrote:I use a tumbler rated for 3lbs. I fill the tumbler about half full of water, a big squirt of Dawn, about an oz or so of clean sand, and about 150-200 ugly coins. I run this anywhere from 4-8 hours, drain, rinse, spread out on towel and let dry until the next batch is ready. Been running about 3 batchs a day over the last month and cleaned about 15000 coins.

Steve


Got a picture of what they look like after that treatment? Curious to see the before and after. Is it worth the power to clean a buck and a half of cents?
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Re: Cleaning extremely dirty copper pennies

Postby NotABigDeal » Wed Jul 16, 2014 8:06 am

I've thought about running some in my commercial vibratory polisher I use for brass. Makes the brass look brand new. Pretty expensive penny polisher though, hehe.

If I get some time I might try it.

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Re: Cleaning extremely dirty copper pennies

Postby realhumancopper » Wed Jul 16, 2014 8:19 am

Hi, a follow-up: any thoughts to using a bit of vinegar or lemon juice in the tumbler? Also, coarse sand sounds better. I have the various grades for lapidary work. Thanks..................h
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Re: Cleaning extremely dirty copper pennies

Postby DaMangRon » Wed Jul 16, 2014 10:55 am

I use walnut shell medium in a tumbler. Takes a lot longer than using soap and water....but I think it's a whole lot easier then having to worry about drying the cents. I'll run the tumbler for 24 hours and it'll get about 75% of the dirty copper clean. The remaining 25% just get stored separately.
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