Pour undiluted apple cider vinegar into a small, nonreactive container. Drop in one penny at a time. Remove the coin after a minute or so. Follow up with baking soda paste, and then rinse the coin clean before drying with a soft, clean cloth.
Vinegar. A common ingredient in DIY eco-friendly cleaners, the acetic acid in white vinegar can help wear away the contamination on your coins. Soak your coins in a glass or other non-corrosive container for at least 30 minutes, up to overnight, and then wipe with a clean cloth or scrub gently with an old toothbrush.
Pour your coins into one bowl and fill with cold water until the money is well covered. In the other bowl, pour about 1 teaspoon of baking soda. Dip the toothbrush into the bowl of baking soda and scrub the coins. The baking soda should remove any dirt and grime and won't scratch the metal.
Ordinary vinegar can be used to rid old coins of the gunk they've gathered over time. To restore pennies to their original luster, simply plop them into a solution of vinegar and salt, let them sit for a few minutes, then rinse them off and watch them shine like new.
Within about 30 seconds, the pennies in this bowl will start to shine. The vinegar and salt mixture dissolves the outer layer of dirt. Flip the pennies over and wait another 30 seconds. Then remove them, rinse them with water, and dry.
Use distilled water, and rinse with distilled water. Acetone is another commonly used solvent, but there is a fire hazard that you should be aware of when using it as a coin cleaning material. Fingernail polish remover contains acetone, but it has other chemicals that may cause damage to upper grade coins.
Before cleaning old coins, consider that appraisers and coin experts suggest not cleaning collectible coins yourself because the coins may lose their value. Using chemical cleaners or scrubbing the coins can leave behind scratches and marks, easily seen by a skilled coin appraiser.
Coins that are obviously dirty can be run under water (with a very mild detergent) and left to air dry. A short soak in olive oil may remove unwanted gunge. For cleaning corroded coins the damage is already done, they will forever show pitting into the coin surface. This is as far as anyone should go with cleaning.
Use Hand Sanitizer
This buildup causes the metal to tarnish and can increase the amount of wear and corrosion on the face of the coin. The more the face of the coin is handled, the more subdued the features will become. Hand sanitizer will remove the bulk of those troublesome oils.
The combination of vinegar (a weak solution of acetic acid), and table salt (sodium chloride) helps to dissolve the copper oxide, and also forms the blue copper(II) ion, which is soluble in water. The penny becomes shiny again!
The oil-base makes WD-40 reasonably effective at removing it without a lot of work. There is of course some sacrifice when this stuff is removed but fortunately the metal underneath is in pretty good condition and the coin, in hand, is much more presentable.
This is never advised for the general public. There is no benefit to attempting to clean a collectible coin. Copper never re-tones to its original color and look anyway. Put down the polish before you destroy something historical and throw away a fortune.
Well, cola is acidic. It's actually the acid within the cola that's reacting with the rust on the surface of our coins and causing them to return to their original shiny selves. Our cola contains phosphoric acid which is why cola is acidic.
Soap and Water - This is generally the only way to clean silvered and silver-plated coins, without damaging the silver. Ammonium - Windex works fine. This will clean the coin without damaging the silver.
Due to its mild abrasiveness, it removes stuck-on particles and will polish most hard substances, including coins. You can clean most coins using baking soda and water alone; however, you should note that cleaning old coins may decrease their value.
Patina, that green film that forms on old metals due to exposure over the years, is actually desired and appreciated by avid coin collectors. It is best not to clean rare coins as removing the patina can significantly reduce the value of them. For this reason, most coin hobbyists almost never clean their coins.
Since it was first produced and sold in the United States in the mid-1800s, baking soda has been a popular product with many useful purposes. One of these is to clean certain valuable items in a safe, effective way. As for whether or not baking soda damages silver coins, the short answer is typically no.
Brasso is a metal cleaner that some people will already have on hand for other home applications and it is definitely the quickest and easiest method to clean pennies.
Cleaning old coins might seem like a good way to revitalise the appearance of a treasured item, but could in fact reduce a coin's value significantly, and should be avoided. Particularly in the case of old precious metal coins, cleaning them is most definitely not recommended!