Oh ho! No letting your coins pile up in some vault for you, oh no! There is no way you’re letting your super rare Morgan Silver Dollar sit in some vault in a bank half way across the world, no sir. But wait, what about…. Dirt? What about grime? What about the fact that silver, over time, gets darkened? It’s one of a silver collector’s worst nightmares: to have their collection turned filthy.

Obviously we are being a bit silly here, but the fact is that silver coins look their best when they are shiny, clean, and looking like the day they were minted. Not only is this a point of pride, but when you are showing your coins to sell, grimy coins may not always sell as well as the shiny ones (though many collectors prefer some dirt for authenticity). So how do you clean silver coins without risking damage?

Cleaning Your Silver Coin Hoard

It is not easy to clean silver coins; it requires a delicate touch and a few supplies. Fortunately these things are cheap and easy to procure, but it is not easy to do. In order to clean a silver coin you will need:

A bowl
Clean, warm water
A soft toothbrush.

Alternatively, you can use olive oil instead of warm water.

If you are using warm water, very gently scrub your coins with the soft toothbrush and get off any dirt you can with it. Don’t rub too hard and don’t leave them in the water for too long or the silver might be damaged. If you are using olive oil, let the coins sit in it for about a week and then gently scrub them clean.

If you have more money and some skill in cleaning, you can use acid baths for your silver coins. The best ones are Lemon acid and acid fluid. Lemon acid is used as a bath for your coins for about one day or, if you’re in a hurry, you can add several iron nails to the bath to cut the time down to half an hour. Acid fluid is the use of sour milk or acid vinegar sprinkled on a soft cloth or a potato half and then gently rubbed on the silver and then dried with another soft cloth. Be very careful when using acid baths as it’s very easy to damage the silver if you don’t watch it carefully.

You could use silver cleaning products, but be very, very careful. Silver cleaners work very fast (like minutes) and you could lose a layer of two of dirt that you want on your coins to make them look more authentic. If you don’t care about that, silver cleansers work well, but most collectors and investors want their ancient coins to look ancient.

Warnings:

• Do not use your silver cleaning fluid to clean anything else at the same time or else there could be a negative reaction with the fluid which will impact the silver. Bronze for example, leeches into the fluid which then damages the silver.
• Pay close attention to your silver bath to make sure that you don’t have too many layers coming off if you want to preserve some authenticity with older coins
• Use very soft cloths or brushes to clean the dirt from your silver or else you may end up rubbing off more than you want!
• You should be experienced in cleaning before attempting to clean silver; most coins don’t even need cleaning (particularly collector coins as many prefer an air of age around them) and you don’t want to accidentally damage something expensive!

Cleaning silver coins is a great way to make them look like new, but exercise care when doing it and make sure you clean off only what you want to clean. If this means slowly wiping your coins rather than tossing them in a chemical bath, so be it! Be careful and pay attention to what you’re doing and your silver coins will be fine and come out the better for their cleaning.

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