Hi my son inherited 30 silver "Morgan" Dollars from his great uncle. We are new to coin collecting, some of them are very tarnished, like when old silverware tarnishes. We found directions on the net here:

http://www.coincleaner.friendpages.com

That tells how to clean up old coins so they are shiny again but before I invest the money in a rock tumbler could someone check out the page and let us know if this is worth it?

Is this the best way to go about it?

THANKS! (from my son and me)

CrazyCatLady

No never, don't clean coins!

If you did that, the values of coins will plummet right away.

What on earth is a rock tumbler?

Cleaning coins is like taking an old antique peice of furniature, stripping it down and painting it purple...you loose a lot of value that way, trust me. You cannot clean coins.....if you don't beleive me go to a coin shop in your town and ask them....

Clean coins lose value FAST...

Yeah, so what everyone is trying to say is dont clean those coins.

Leave them as is.

They will hold their value uncleaned. I've never heard of a rock tumbler being used and Ill tell you I cringed when I read your post. Those poor coins!!! If I may quote his own guestbook:

"Name: Bill on 10/6/2005 said:
Subject: Rock Tumbler
Message: This has to be the worst bit of advie concerning the cleaning of coins ever posted on the internet. Even if it was intended as a joke, many will take it seriously. Cleaning coins with anything stronger that distilled water is a VERY VERY bad idea."

"Name: Kenneth Engelhardt on 9/29/2005 said:
Subject: Cleaning Coins in a Rock Tumbler
Message: Cleaning coins in a rock tumbler???? You must be out of your mind to post this misinformed garbage. TO ALL OF THOSE READING THIS: DON'T FOLLOW THIS CRACKPOT'S ADVICE ABOUT POLISHING YOUR COINS IN A ROCK TUMBLER. YOU WILL PERMANENTLY RUIN YOUR COINS!!!"

"Name: Ed on 9/29/2005 said:
Subject: No way to tumbling
Message: This is the worst advice you could give. Is this site some kind of joke."

I recognise those names from around here... ehh guys?

If you want to get a general idea how much your coins are worth you can check here:

http://www.pcgs.com/prices/

You may or may not get the price that is listed for each coin if you choose to sell them. But it will give you a general idea of thier worth and you can count on not getting close to what is listed if you clean them with a rock tumbler. Check 'em out and let us know if you have any with BIG numbers next to it

-Bobby

I agree! That site MUST be a spoof. I hope there are not too many people out there that have followed the advice!

Welcome to the forum CrazyCatLady

THE ROCK TUMBLER COIN CLEANING METHOD:

SET UP:

You will need 1 cup of sand,
10 or so pieces of marble sized gravel,
2 tablespoons of liquid dish soap,(not dishwashing machine soap),
1 tablespoon of liquid silver cleaner,(a 1/2 tsp. of bleach can be used if you have none.) (BLEACH?? Doesn't bleach tone silver? )
and about 2 cups of water.


That advertisement is terrible, it will destroy the appearance and any value your coins may have. This method may be fine for jewelry but most of the ways for cleaning jewelry are much to harsh to use on coins.
Advertisers love to say that their cleaners are good for coins but they are not.

A good coin cleaning rule is this.
If you don't know how to clean coins don't do it.
If you know how to clean coins you still shouldn't do it.

Cleaning silver dollars is the quickest way I know to turn them into silver bullion.

Don't use anything abrasive. Not sand in rock cleaners, not baking sodas paste, not a tooth brush nothing. Do not use any acid cleaner (store bought jewlery dip, vinegar, lemon juice, etc.) Coins are easily damaged.

If your coins are worn and you need to get tarnish off you can use household ammonia without damaging the coins if you don't rub them. But even this is probably not necessary.

Dont go to that link, this is SPAM and should be removed, I have seen it posted on other Forums, Car and Coin Forums....
Again its just Spam

I used to tumble rocks in a small tumbler and be guaranteed that you would have a smooth piece of junk metal if you left it in very long at all.

Rock tumblers are not made for cleaning--they are made to smooth things by super quickly eroding away sharp edges, etc. Supposed to have the effect of lots and lots of years of a rock being tumbled through water and polished. Ever pick up a stream rock? Smooth as a baby's behind!

Maybe the dude who posted it is trying to make his stuff more valuable by having everybody else destroy theirs with his nutty idea.

http://www.rocktumblinghobby.com/index.html

I find this quote fitting for the above subject of polishing coins:

"Rock tumbling is a process whereby rough stone is taken as a raw material, and rotated inside a barrel with a selection of harder "grits", until all the rough edges have been removed. Once the stone has been shaped, it is polished in a final phase until perfectly smooth..."

Name: Dewayne on 10/10/2005 said:
Subject: 1889 SILVER DOLLAR
Message: i used this on my tarished 1889 silver dollar it does everything he said and more it even took off the cc letters someone had stamp under the eagle. Thanks so much!!!!


I hope this guy is joking!!!!!!!

I thought it smelled like spam too. I would leave the thread up, though, just so anyone searching about cleaning collectible coins in a rock tumbler might find this thread and hear what an incredibly bad idea it is and how it will certainly decrease the value of the coins.

Looks cool! Maybe I'll start tumbling rocks too

Cleaning them ruins the value of the coins. If it is worth $20 before cleaing, afterwards it is worth maybe $7-8. 99% of people here will tell you not to clean the coins.

A lot of people want "pretty" coins that are very appealing to the eye. If you REALLY want (I don't recommend this) you can trade the ugly dollars for a very eye appealing coin.

With 30 silver dollars your son is well on his way to a nice collection. I started out with maybe 10 Morgan's given to me by my Grandfather (he kept a majority of them). Now my collection is well over 30 and still growing.

If you could, post up a list of the coins. You may have one that needs to be protected right away!

Yea it is spam, I belong to a Jeep 4x4 site that had the same ad on there. Same with the PCGS message board. But it didnt say anything about morgans, just said some coins. The person gets paid per person that looks at that site and they get paid more for each sign up. i know how this works cause I was an affiliate of that site....Just an FYI

Everything was fun except for the NOISE. The tumbler is not supposed to stop (except briefly for changing water, grit, etc.) and it is not a friendly noise.

It's a can of rocks endlessly rolling over and over and over and over...

Wouldn't be too bad if you had a basement, attic, garage, etc., to put it in instead of the house.

You guys are gonna love this.......

I have tumbled 1000's of coins in the last 3 years!!

Since 2002 I've dug up over 10,000 coins with my detector. In that total were 40 silver coins, 1 Indian head cent and about 200 or so Wheatys. The rest are crusty zlincolns and clad pocket change. They go to the tumbler. water,sand and a drop of soap,tumble for an hour or so and then get rolled and cashed at the bank. None of the good stuff gets tumbled. The tumbler makes the crap spendable.

My tumbler is not bad at all. Hard rubber drum. Just the Hum of the motor.

Post a list of the dates, or even pics. You may have a real key date!

In other words, these are beautiful old coins with lovely original toning.

Preserve them as they are and you will be rewarded many times over.

Hey, Doc, let's rock! Got any rock pictures?

Forget that rock tumbler thing. I'll sell you some sandpaper cheap and you can do the Morgans by hand. ahaha

I don't tumble rocks..only coins.

To me it seems to be a gag site, simply meant to outrage real numismatists.

It doesn't have a page to purchase a tumbler.

Allow me to parrot everyone else... DON'T CLEAN YOUR COINS!

If you can provide us with a list of what silver dollars you're son has, we can determine which coin(s) are common date(s). The mint marks (if any) on Morgans (1878-1904 and 1921) are on the lower reverse above the D and O in DOLLAR. On Peace dollars (1921-1935), it's on the left reverse below ONE. No mint mark means it was struck in Philadelphia.

A poster on a long-gone coins discussion board once suggested putting your coins in the silverware basket of your dishwasher and running the load. I would suggest taking one of his silver dollars and trying it, BUT NOT until you're sure it isn't a key or semi-key dated coin (which is why we need to know which coins he has). After the dishwasher, silver polish, baking soda, vinegar, rock tumbler (huh?), or other types of attempts at cleaning, you'll see how unnatural it would look. A silver dollar that would have been worth about $20 would drop to its silver bullion value (now about $6).

Jerry