An introduction to cleaning coins

Cleaning coins is not necessary for every coin you come across, but if you’ve been treasure hunting and have only newly dug up your coins, or you've bought some coins from Ebay, you might want to look into cleaning coins with mud and grit on them.

Before you start cleaning coins in earnest, it's important to understand the sort of condition you'll find them in.

Any coin that still shows traces of its original stamped image will probably grade poor to fair. Coins that have recognisable images and inscriptions will be good to very good to fine or very fine.

Don't be put off when you find coins that have images that are off-centre, contain holes, or show signs of having pieces sawn off. Ancient coins were hand-made using blank discs of metal and special mint dies. A blank was placed on the bottom of the die, covered with the top die and stuck sharply with a hand-held mallet - they were literally 'bashed out'. You can imagine from this process that the less skilful workers would produce sloppy, irregular coins.

Large denomination coins often were made of more precious metals, and so were sometimes cut into smaller pieces to make change. Successive regimes often altered coinage by piercing or re-striking, to change the imprints and form of the coin.

Very often people would make a small cut in a coin to make sure it was solid and not just plated with precious metal.

Bear this tips about coin condition in mind when cleaning coins and you'll have a lot of success!

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