Have a lot of dug coins?

John Madill said:

that's a heap of coins Gregazar!

and you say that is only a fraction of what you have.

how many silver coins did you find among all that?

for you tumble people, how long do you typically tumble coins?

are we talking hours, days, weeks?

my niece has a tumbler from National Geographic. they also sell a kid's metal detector i believe.

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gregazar said:

Sounds like cleaning is a lot of time and work for very little return and Coinstar is a rip-off. I think I will stick with the Mutilated Coin Redemption option.

https://www.usmint.gov/news/press-re...mption-program

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gismapper said:

... That was me! Or, at least I did a version of that. I used to go detecting over lunch at work, as there was a park behind my office. I could easily go out and cherry pick a dollar or so and be back in the office within an hour. But...what to do with my finds? I realized that I could hit the men's room and give them a decent wash in the sink, then dump them in the vending machine and hit "coin return" and get nice, clean, beautiful change back. Worked great until one day...my manager walks up to my desk and slaps down two toasty brown quarters and just stares at me. He got them as change while buying a coke. I burst out laughing as he said, "I don't even want these in my pocket!" I had previously shown him what dug coins look like. He put it together and figured me out. I stopped my magic cleaning process after that, but we all got a good chuckle out of it.

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wasatchau said:

Gregazar,
Turning found clad and Pennie’s into till-ready coinage is easy, but you need a system. Separate clad and zinc Pennie’s. Use a rotary tumbler. Clad only tumbles with chicken grit, water and a drop of Dawn. Rinse off the chicken grit and tumble again with vinegar and a media. I use the pins that come with the Lyman rotary cartridge tumbler as media. Rinse, dry and take ‘‘em to your credit union that doesn’t charge a premium to cash-in. That’s for clad. Pennies get a single tumble with vinegar and media. There is some nuance, but that’s the process.
Total time to tumble twice and dry is an afternoon. At roughly $20/pound for clad, and $1.45/pound for Pennie’s, it’s worth it to me. You’ll have to decide for yourself.
I would add pictures but this site says I lack some security thang!
Anyway, I clean coins in 5 to 8 pound lots 8 to 10 times a year. It pays for my detectors and fuel to get to my sites. The PMs are just gravy.

As for sending bad coins to the mint… I have 40+ pounds of bad Pennie’s and only a couple of pounds of bad clad. Shipping costs would make it a break even endeavor. Hardly worth the trouble..

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Martin_V3i said:

I read once on-line about a tector taking his dirty coins to venting machines, putting them in like buying something, and hitting "return" before buying and getting new, clean coins in exchange.

My morals kept me from trying that myself, but it did make me wonder something. Why take time and effort in separating the pennies from the other coin types before tumbling, if a Coinstar is the tool you will use? Who cares if quarters dimes and nickels are pink (you'll never see them again) with a machine charging a 11 percent fee? Separating the pennies is a hassle in itself. I usually miss one penny and get a blended color anyway.

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markinswpa said:

Martin, I do take care to keep clad and pennies separate and when I rinse and dry my clad its shiny but they still turn pink after an hour or so. Maybe from reusing the gravel. I don't mind rolling my clad, I don't wait too long, $ 100 or so that way its only a 15-20 min. job. My bank doesn't charge a fee and even gives me the wrappers. Mark

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