Please Don't Rub!

atari1050

New Member
Joined
Dec 21, 2018
Messages
10
Location
Rockmart, GA
Hey Folks-
Just a general tip here.
I know, it's human nature, we are curious, we want to know the mystery, but for the Love of Pete, please STOP rubbing your finds!

Oh my goodness, if I see one more guy on Youtube rubbing his silver, it's going to kill me.
As a numismatist, this just absolutely rubs me the wrong way (pun intended).

Yes, I know, the coins are old, and most likely worn, but that is not always the case! I've seen people pull out Standing Liberty coins and Mercs that were in awesome shape (Liberty: breast plate detail was still in place, Merc: fully separated vertical bars on the reverse).
If ya rub 'em, ya ruin 'em!
So, what do you do? Well, there's one video (sorry, I don't have the link) where the guy uses a little spray bottle to end the mystery.
But, why not treat it like Christmas or Hanukkah? Keep the mystery intact until you read up on the "Cleaning your finds" forum here and then clean them when you get home! :)

Thoughts?
Mike
 
I pretty much agree with what stiffwrists says.. I used to let things like that bother me but you know what life’s too short and what someone else does really has no affect on me whatsoever. Who am I to say how you should treat something you went to the trouble of finding. If you decide to make a wish and throw it in the nearest pond by all means go for it. To each their own as long as it doesn’t affect me or my family.... Have a great day.
 
....Thoughts? ...

Mike, there was a horror story that circulated in my area, for a number of years. It went like this:

There was a certain furrowed agriculture (lettuce) field where the military had camped out from 1847-ish to 1850-ish. And starting about 1980-ish, some local md'rs got wind of this through research. Started hunting the field. And some reales, super early seateds, etc... were found. Before long, a gold coin. Then the race was on ! (Eventually at least 7 gold coins were to be found)

One of the guys to hit the field, one muddy day, dug a $10 gold ! And guess what he did ? The very thing that ANY excited md'r does when he pulls up a coin: He started rubbing the mud off to see the date.

Yup, you guessed it: "Scritch Scritch Scritch".

Later on (long after rinsed properly under running water, with soft tooth-brush to clean the recesses) you could STILL see his thumb "scritch scritch" efforts all across the date area of the coin. The gritty wet mud had acted as a sort of sandpaper. Ouch :(
 
Bahahahahaha, you sure don’t want to detect with me.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Hey Folks-
Just a general tip here.
I know, it's human nature, we are curious, we want to know the mystery, but for the Love of Pete, please STOP rubbing your finds!
Thoughts?
Mike
I hear ya Mike. Guilty as charged, here. It does bother me, though, to see some of the excessive dirty coin rubbing on fresh YouTube digs. Don't know why it bothers me. It's their find.
Anyways, for most dug silvers, a little thumb wipe will not diminish any value, So I don't worry much. I am concerned a tiny bit that one of these days, I will shave a couple hundred bucks off the value of an otherwise excellent condition key date something or other. You may have just pushed me over the edge, into having a little spritz bottle handy. Doesn't sound too difficult.
 
Here's my thought... I found it. I can rub it. Thanks for your suggestion.

:D:D:D

Fair enough. :) The gold coin story TominCA shared was a good example though. But, it would be sad for me to see one from your collection that was insanely rare and had scratches on it.

Enough of my gripin' - Get out there and start huntin'!

-Mike
 
Fair enough. :) The gold coin story TominCA shared was a good example though. But, it would be sad for me to see one from your collection that was insanely rare and had scratches on it.

Enough of my gripin' - Get out there and start huntin'!

-Mike

Haha. I get your point too. My post sounded a little curt. The three smiling faces may have not softened it enough. Believe me, when I dig a $10 gold coin. I ain't rubbing it.
 
Last edited:
Usually if I find silver, I put it away until I get home and then rinse the dirt off with water in the sink. To each his own, but I try not to scrub them in the field, especially anything older than 1940. Good luck and happy hunting!
 
yep Tom In CA is right. Don't get too impatient. Most good detectorists who look for old coins will use small bottle of water spray, or spit on it and a soft toothbrush. But will not rub with fingers. Yes, they will use their finger tip to pry directly up on some chunks of dirt.

dirt, mud is all sand and very abrasive. Once you scratch it, you cannot unscratch it. So you have to wait till you have water to clean it to get the date. Big deal.

True if you don't give a !!!!, then don't worry.

For me, finding silver is so rare, I treat it like it was gold. Two months ago found a 1964 quarter and it still sits here on my desk with dirt on it. I want everyone to know that I found and dug that sucker and didn't find it in Coinstar. Not that I have anything against coinstar finds, I find more there than in the ground.
 
I agree whole heartedly with the no-rubbing-silver (or gold!) sentiment without a good spurt of water from a spray bottle first to remove most of the crunchy bits, in fact one of the reasons I prefer bare fingertips is to avoid the glove carrying tiny stones that can scratch finds.

But as someone with YT videos, the most comments I get are about old coppers, which I rub away on without water. I find they hardly ever show scratches, and water will remove the green/brown patina. Also, the light colored clay looks really nice in the recesses which I don’t want to wash away.

That being said, everyone should just do what they wanna ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
 
Here's my thought... I found it. I can rub it. Thanks for your suggestion.

:D:D:D

HAHAHAH!!! Love it. :) Was my thought, too.

But then, again, the only truly old find I had, I waited until I got home from overseas to truly attempt a clean with a toothpick.

So, on one hand, I adhere to the "it's my find, I'll do what I want," but on the other, I actually ALSO don't rub them.

But I pretty much guarantee, if I found a silver coin in the dirt, where I commonly hunt, I'd rub away. I don't expect to find anything good.

Skippy
 
Since I started doing the YouTube thing, I like to show viewers the finds as I dig them. Sometimes a spray bottle works, but sometimes my coins are caked with hard packed red GA clay (like cement!) and spraying a mist of water on them is a complete waste of time. They have to be soaked for a while to get the crud off. I'm guilty of rubbing those just because I want to show viewers the finds in real time. Now that I've gotten a little better at editing video, I try to pause the clip, cut away for some cleaning and then show a picture of the cleaned coin. Honestly though, most of the coins I find already have scratches all over them from being in the ground for a century or more. My view on this subject is to each his own.
 
I will "dab" with spit, gently, to find a glimpse of a date. I won't it with something like a gold coin or a really unique find.

I hunted with a great tector, right after I first started this hobby. He found a 1921 Merc, a key date coin. It stayed crusty with dirt, no scrubbing, and his buyer discounted that price way down to something like 30% of value, saying the coin was cleaned. That coin was treated with surgical gloves in cleaning.

My point is, coming out of the ground, plus with sneaky buyers, I will probably always dab or scuff a little to get a partial date of some kind, after the dig.

I wonder if the ground minerals kind of pit really old coin surfaces anyway.

I take it "a coin at a time."
 
Just this morning while hunting in a bean field where my maternal grandparents once lived - they weren't nearly the first, the old 1906 map shows a house there. I dug a small round object that was all crusty, figured it was a button but put it in the little jar I carry.

When I got home I took a brass brush to it and had to work really hard to get it down to where I could tell it was an IHP - first I've found there. So then put it in the tumbler with some other pennies. Tumbled for just over an hour so now can make out the date - 1902. Need to tumble some more to get the rest of the crud off. But then might just put it in a folder the way it is.

I gave it a good work out but at least I didn't rub it with my fingers :)
 
I'm pretty sure that , that coin or relic that was dropped on the ground, then stomped, plowed or driven over in order for it to be 6 inches down has had a lot more abuse than someone's going to give it by spritzing it with water and rubbing a little dirt off.

I get the concern, but a little curiosity cleaning isn't going to do any more damage than has already been do. JMO
 
Last edited:
We have all done it at one time or another. If you have to rub it in the field, Carry a small squirt bottle with a lock down lid filled with water. That way you can wash the heavy dirt off. But why not wait? I know why. Because you found it!
 
Just yesterday, while we were hunting an ‘invisible schoolhouse”, my buddy dug a pristine Barber dime. “Don’t rub it”, too late, he knew better but couldn’t contain himself. Obvious rub marks across the soft silver - DOH!
 
I guess I'm kinda lucky here as the soil makeup is such that the dirt falls off the coin without rubbing it and I'll say 90% of the time the coin comes out of the ground like it was just dropped. Anything else I'll wait till I get home and run it under the faucet. Good story Tom.
 
Back
Top Bottom