Cleaning Old Silver Beach Finds

[Swifty]

Hello all,

I have been having a little luck on the southern calif beaches lately,

Managed to find this silver standing liberty half dollar along with a merc dime and a buffalo nickel. They are all in about the same condition

being in the ocean and sand for who knows how long. Any ideas on how to clean them?

[Azavsfan]

Awesome find. I've no idea other than maybe electrolysis? Try a quick search on that term for the process but no guarantees. What part of So Cal? County is enough if you're worried about others reading this. I used to live in Ventura County but didn't do much on the beach. I remember when I first got my Garrett 2500 and reached out to a local club member for some help detecting in general and he took me to a local beach. He told me that my 2500 wasn't very good for the beach (not true) and I'd be lucky to find anything but to follow behind him several yards so we could test his theory. Not long into hunt I got a signal his detector missed entirely and it turned out to be 2 clad quarters about 3-4 inches down. I got just over $1 that day. Good luck with those coins and happy hunting.

[Swifty]

Azavsfan most of the Southern Calif beaches are visited by millions during the summer when the tides and surf are

 

mild, A good amount of all the lost items stay lost till the winter storms and low tides hit just right.

 

You were in the area living in Ventura

[Rob]

Swifty,

Congrats on the great beach coins!

Rob

[Swifty]

Hear it is a little cleaner, wrapped it in aluminum foil then a light scrub with a tooth brush.

[Steve Herschbach]

When I was in the UK we cleaned small silver coins by placing the coin with a bit of baking soda and water between sheets of aluminum foil and scrubbing the foil halves over the coin. Basically make an Oreo cookie, aluminum on outside and coin in middle with baking soda paste. The chemical reaction gets quite hot!

But for larger silver items of bulk coins I have been wanting to try the boil it in aluminum container method as described at http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/how-to-clean-silver-131048

You can also put strips of aluminum in a stainless steel container and boil as at http://m.wikihow.com/Clean-Sterling-Silver-with-Baking-Soda-and-Aluminum

I have some silver coins with very dark tarnish - I will give it a try and report back.

[mn90403]

This is the version of silver cleaning I use.  

 

http://cleanmyspace.com/the-besk-kept-silver-cleaning-secret-ever/

 

When you put the silver in it just 'explodes' the tarnish off.  You may want to do it more than once on a really tarnished ring as the aluminum foil will get holes in it.