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. Now you have two clean, shiny pennies!
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.
Collectors like coins with eye appeal, which means maintaining an original surface, unhampered by cleaning. It does not mean bright and shiny. Most coins tone or tarnish over time. Patina and oxidation are normal and should not be tampered with.
Soap. Cleaning your old coins with gentle dish soap and water can loosen some of that built-up dirt. Fill a small plastic container with warm water, add a few drops of mild soap, immerse the coins, and rub with your fingers or a soft toothbrush to clean.
Acid based cleaners will eat away at a coin's surface diminishing its value. According to research professor Vinod Patel, washing coins with natural white vinegar and iodized salt in distilled water is a non destructive way of cleaning coins.
Don't use toothpaste - Toothpaste is extremely abrasive. It can make your coins appear shiny, but cause significant damage to the surface.
Never use metal polish or acid dip to clean your coins! Using these chemicals will cause abrasions or chemical reactions with the metal, permanently damaging your coin. This damage can never be fixed or undone. Additionally, these chemicals can be caustic and cause injury or even death.
Add a small amount of water to a tablespoon of baking soda to form a paste. Apply the paste to each coin using an old toothbrush and scrub gently. Rinse the coins to reveal the now-shiny surfaces.
Copper oxide dissolves in a mixture of weak acid and table salt-and vinegar is an acid. You could also clean your pennies with salt and lemon juice or orange juice, because those juices are acids, too.
Boil 1 1-/4 cups of water, add 2 teaspoons cream of tarter, 2 tablespoons vinegar, and 2 tablespoons salt. Add coins and boil for about 3 minutes or until tarnish is removed. Remove coins from water and dry with a soft cloth. This puts a coppery pink onto pennies.
1. The most important thing NOT to do is clean your coins. Cleaning rare numismatic coins will significantly reduce their value – plain and simple. Although you don't lose much by cleaning a coin which derives value only from its silver content, it's not worth the risk.
Copper oxide dissolves in water, but it usually takes a long time. 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!
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.
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.
The salt and acetic acid in vinegar do the trick. Hot sauce, like Tabasco or taco sauce, also will remove the oxides off pennies. As in ketchup, salt and vinegar are both in hot sauce. Coke and off-brand colas will quickly remove the tarnish.
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.
Most coin cleaning products are abrasive, and could damage the coin. Non-abrasive chemicals can still react with the other metals found in some old coins. The physical act of scrubbing or polishing can also wear down the design, destroying one of the most important factors in deciding a coin's grade.
Ammonia, chlorine bleach, or any other solution containing these chemicals should never be used for cleaning coins since they will cause them to corrode over time.
You may not like what you're about to learn: pennies are still legal tender. That means you can still use them at stores, and you can still deposit them at the bank.
Pour about 100ml of vinegar and a teaspoon of salt into a bowl. Stir until salt dissolves. To start, try dipping one coin halfway in and very slowly count to 10 before taking it out—observe how half of it becomes shiny. Rinse them all with clean water and dry using paper towels.