Diggin' The Campground (update)

[kac]

Seen a few like that here and even some silver clad in rusty color. Mostly found in a nearby school yard that was build on some swampy land that has a ton of natural iron in it. If you dig down about a foot or so you get rusty looking water bubbling up. Nickels are 75% copper and 25% nickel.

[F350Platinum]

I did find this article:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/coinsite.com/a-nickel-which-appears-to-be-copper/amp/

[Jeff McClendon]

Red/orange looking modern clad is something I find almost weekly. Usually a third of the clad I have to clean before depositing in the bank is either orange, copperish red or brown. It comes off in my tumbler. You have some reddish orange quarters in your earlier photo from the same area.

There have been some Philadelphia Mint error 2000 nickels that were accidentally made on a copper penny sized planchet. I don't know of any Denver Mint errors like that for the 2000 nickels. Those Philadelphia Mint error nickels are worth quite a bit of money for collectors.

[Joe D.]

   Your supposed to make the coins pretty, before they go to the bank!!? Whoops!!??? 

[Jeff McClendon]

10 minutes ago, Joe D. said:

   Your supposed to make the coins pretty, before they go to the bank!!? Whoops!!??? 

My neighborhood bank would be pretty mad at me if the $700 or so of clad I usually deposit each year was dirty orange, crusty and gross. They have their own coin sorting machine. They don’t accept coins in rolls so I can’t hide the dirty ones inside a roll.

[Joe D.]

  Unfortunately, the bank I'm stuck with for now, deserves dirty coins! (Their washed and are legal tender, discolored or not!) Since they freely report unrequired customer info to the "establishment"!! 

   And there ain't nothing "neighborly" about them!!??

[F350Platinum]

9 hours ago, Jeff McClendon said:

Red/orange looking modern clad is something I find almost weekly. Usually a third of the clad I have to clean before depositing in the bank is either orange, copperish red or brown. It comes off in my tumbler. You have some reddish orange quarters in your earlier photo from the same area.

There have been some Philadelphia Mint error 2000 nickels that were accidentally made on a copper penny sized planchet. I don't know of any Denver Mint errors like that for the 2000 nickels. Those Philadelphia Mint error nickels are worth quite a bit of money for collectors.

This is all new to me digging such a large about of clad, it's a surprise to know the more experienced detectorists even bother to dig this stuff, but $700 a year is $700 a year ?. ? I have all the colors as you saw, quite a few red quarters. This one stood out to me, as it really had a major change. Think I'll hold onto it in case there are enough of them to declare a true collectible. It's only one nickel.

What sort of tumbler do you use? I was thinking of filling my large plastic coin jug with water and Tide or something. ? Maybe a handful of gravel.

My bank didn't worry about crud, they took it all the last time most of it being a hoard given to us by a relative. I sneaked the last 300 or so in the hoard. ? Thanks Jeff. ?

[mh9162013]

Every few dimes or quarters I dig will have a pinkish-redish "coating" on them, similar (if not identical) to the coins Jeff showed. I figured it had to do with fertilizer, weed killer or a "stage" in the coin "aging" process.

[Jeff McClendon]

1 hour ago, F350Platinum said:

This is all new to me digging such a large about of clad, it's a surprise to know the more experienced detectorists even bother to dig this stuff, but $700 a year is $700 a year ?. ? I have all the colors as you saw, quite a few red quarters. This one stood out to me, as it really had a major change.

What sort of tumbler do you use? I was thinking of filling my large plastic coin jug with water and Tide or something. ? Maybe a handful of gravel.

My bank didn't worry about crud, they took it all the last time most of it being a hoard given to us by a relative. I sneaked the last 300 or so in the hoard. ? Thanks Jeff. ?

I live in a big urban environment with dozens of trash filled old parks nearby that also have plenty of clad, jewelry and the occasional silver/older coins. I also have a dog so I detect while walking my dog.

The more shallow trash and clad I clear out, the more likely I will be able to detect deeper jewelry, relics and older coins. I am also a coin collector and I have had gold fever for as long as I can remember. So I definitely dig clad……especially US nickels and zinc pennies which sometimes turn out to be larger karat men’s gold rings!!!!

Any tumbler will work even Harbor Freight models. There are lots of cleaning “recipes” to add to the coins in the tumbler to get them cleaned up.