slim pickings today but found a coin from 1850!

[calabash digger]

tough day today but did find one nice keeper. 57074570755707657077

[del]

very nice looking coin , it held up well :smitten:congrats !

[calabash digger]

thanks , do you guys put olive oil on your coppers?

[del]

No , I say olive oil is for salads and not coins . :lol: clean it as best you can with a dry tooth brush or tooth pick as you want to see what color the actual metal is. reddish is usually a flag to tell you it has a rough exposed surface and to proceed at your own risk . Meaning there is significant damage and while you may get the dirt off you may also lose detail. Ideally you want to see a nice green or light brown chocolate patina ,this tells you that the surface of the coin should be more stable and intact to clean and get much detail. Once your happy with the cleaning then you can use renaissance wax , a small dab of Vaseline or just a bit of light metal oil or mineral oil to keep it looking nice.

Dan

[calabash digger]

thanks was wondering I put olive oil on this one.

[Digger_O'Dell]

Very nice find! I agree with Dan, be careful with the cleaning. Often old copper is very porous and actually looks much worse after a good cleaning, and a lot of detail is lost or becomes hard to distinguish.

[Digger Don]

Very nice find. yours turned out nice. I ruined my first couple of large cents by over cleaning and putting oil on them.
A tooth brush will usually do the trick.

[del]

thanks was wondering I put olive oil on this one.

Olive oil won't harm it in any way it just takes forever for it to clean anything , its pretty easy to take the oil off . Don't listen to others on the other forum , you didn't bring the value down by "cleaning" it , most of the time coppers are about worthless because of their dirty condition but cleaned right they are worth more . Its usually the opposite with more modern change .

[Ill Digger]

Well if your only gonna find one coin during a hunt, that's a good one to find!!
Congrats! :grin:
And like Dan said, you didn't ruin it.

[calabash digger]

thanks , I was kinda thinking the same thing if your only gonna find one keeper in a 4 hour hunt that was a good one to get .lol We were beating around in some thick woods on a old homesite and I had a feeling about a ridge away from the site and it paid off. my buddy got a suspender clip a nice one .

[MangoAve]

Sweet LC. The ones newer than 1839 seem to be really good. As well as the 1749 KG2... If I ever find one with that date.