Two questions for coin collectors

Factual Questions
1

I have just inherited a lot of coins. Mostly silver dollars. Some are old and tarnished and some are in their original 20 coin platic rolls.

  1. An experiment on a one of the coins shows that I can remove most of the tarnish by soaking in amonia. It seems to be non-abrasive and restores the coin. Even if this is not the best tarnish remover, is it wise to use a non-abrasive tarnish remover? Will it improve the value of the coin?

  2. The newer coins in their plastic rolls, would it be wise to seperate them all and put them into their own plastic air-tight package?

Thanks

2

What is the date range of the dollars? That would help me answer better.

If they are from 1971-1999, then they are copper-nickel. And ammonian won’t hurt them. Store them however you wish.

If they are between 1878-1935, then they are silver. Again, ammonia won’t hurt. Just don’t rub them when you wash them off and dry them.

Storage in plastic coin tubes is fine. Storing them together, rather than separately, is fine.

Cleaning them, or removing tarnish, will not increase their value.

3

NEVER EVER EVER CLEAN COINS!!!

Ask a coin shop specializing in collectibles for advice. Coins of any worth may have their worth destroyed if they are cleaned, as this is a typical indicator of fraud. Just leave 'em; if any of the loose coins are in good shape, you might want to seal them in plastic – again, get professional advice.

4

As a professional coin dealer for over 30 years, I offer this professional advice.

We tell people all the time to not clean coins. We mainly do that because people quite often clean coins abrasively, thereby deminishing the value. Most of the time you merely turn a 1922 silver dollar(that we would pay $7 for) into a coin that we would pay $5-6 for.

In a very rare instance, a person may have a $500 coin which could be lowered in value by a poor, abrasive cleaning.

Since you were asking about using ammonia, I had no qualms about your cleaning the coins. I also cautioned against rubbing them.

I don’t understand the comment about cleaning being an indicator of “fraud.”

5

If you handed two coins to a layman, one in fine condition that had a normal patina and another in good condition that had been whizzed and looked shiny, which would they think is worth more?