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Can anyone recommend a good tumbler? After reading this thread I checked my hoard and it's infected

This all sounds like money laundering to me. I toss the worst ones in a separate bag but only if I happen to notice. My big contamination is finding 95% US copper in my 98% Canadian copper pennies.

galenrog wrote:I take care of "green cancer" with a tumbler and VERY LITTLE clear dish soap. Just a drop or two. Tumble for a hour or two. Rinse well and air dry. Do this only with coins that you know have no numismatic value.

I am getting ready to tumble my first batch of greenies. Do you put water or anything else in there too, or just a couple drops of dish soap and the pennies?

mtldealer wrote:Can anyone recommend a good tumbler? After reading this thread I checked my hoard and it's infected

I use the UV-10....works great... http://www.therockshed.com/tumbler3.html
I run mine with the Silicon Carbide 120/220 coarse grit http://www.therockshed.com/grit.html

I run my tumbler dry only for two hours per batch of 1,000 coins....then I sift the grit to seperate the coins out and wash them in an acetone bath, then a distilled water rinse....finally air dried and bagged...

I intend to hold my hoard for 20+ years, so if and when I open the horad I expect to see clean copper...

My coins look just like tinhorn's final picture....

hags

I'm going to save this reference, and decide later while I accumulate the uglies.

Also interested in hearing about the various tumbling techniques, grit vs no grit, etc.

Thanks!

NHsorter wrote:

galenrog wrote:I take care of "green cancer" with a tumbler and VERY LITTLE clear dish soap. Just a drop or two. Tumble for a hour or two. Rinse well and air dry. Do this only with coins that you know have no numismatic value.

I am getting ready to tumble my first batch of greenies. Do you put water or anything else in there too, or just a couple drops of dish soap and the pennies?

Try adding some aquarium gravel along with the teeny tiny amount of dish soap. Proportionally to the size of your tumbler. I use a Chicago 3 lb tumbler on coin shooting finds and I use between a 1/3 and a 1/2 a cup. Cleans up stuff out of the ground pretty good so it might help with the greenie problem. You can keep using the gravel until the edges go smooth.

I used one exactly like this through the summer, but I don't have an indoor place to set it up so it's mothballed for the winter: http://www.ebay.com/itm/370504926057?ss ... 1438.l2649

Now I'm using a Lortone rock tumbler with three 12-pound barrels. I use plastic BBs for general washing because they don't remove any of the patina. (I dual-sort, then wash, then final-sort before a visual inspection.) Those with any green on them go to another 12-pound Lortone with aquarium gravel (hat tip to Diggin). I've gradually reduced the amount of soap to several drops. I use equal amounts of pennies and medium, then enough water to cover the entire mess. I had a hard time getting them to dry without spotting until I stumbled across a jewelry tumbler/dryer. So from the wash they get rinsed, acetone-soaked, briefly air-dried for the vapors to dissipate, then into the tumbler/dryer.

Since you all are already "facilitized" for processing blemished coins, I'm tempted to just offer my cast-offs to those with the equipjment, at extreme discount (face + shipping + teeny premium). I don't think I could ever make enough off of them (it would take decades) to justify buying all the equipment you guys have. Now if I was into reloading, or metal detecting, or had some other reason for dual-use, it would make more sense.