Although cleaning Indian coins is not at all recommended as it decreases its value, many people can't resist when they see tarnish or blackness on their coins and very often look for some cleaning methods.
Some of them are: - Copper coins are commonly found in India.
You can clean your copper coins with a little bit of Heinz tomato ketchup and scrub it gently with the toothbrush.
Rinse it with warm water and apply some baking soda paste to bring the sparkling shine.
- You can follow similar step with another sauce known by the name of Taco Bell taco and keep it on for few minutes.
It also makes your copper penny pinkish in colour.
- Another sauce which can be applied to clean Indian coin is Tabasco sauce.
Follow the same steps as mentioned above.
- Mix salt and vinegar and put your tarnished pennies into the solution.
You will notice that the copper pennies turn pink when taken out of the solution.
Wash them with water to avoid further reaction.
- A concoction of lemon juice and salt does not require any scrubbing.
Silver and copper coins become bright when kept in this solution.
Afterwards, just rinse them with clean water.
- Pencil eraser is also popularly known to bring back the brightness and shine.
You simply have to erase the blackness on the coin.
- A Digital Ultrasonic cleaner is an electric device wherein you put some warm water and ultrasonic waves do work.
However, if your collection is purely copper, it will be brightened, but if it is made up of bronze, it's not going to work.
- Many Indian copper cleaners are easily available in market.
These are little more concentrated and can clean your coins fairly.
- Low grade silver coins which are worth their weight of silver can be cleaned by cheap silver cleaner.
Nevertheless, medium and high-grade silver coins are not at all recommended for use of this cleaning purpose.
- This method of Indian coin cleaning is used by most of the local coin dealers.
However, numismatics usually advice to use this technique on only low-grade coins and copper coins.
- Take some water and baking soda between your fingers and rub the coin.
If it is a silver coin, 80% of the shine can be retrieved.
However, on a copper coin, you can feel a slight difference.
However, all the above mentioned methods are dangerous for your Indian coins and the collectors are strictly advised to use these methods at their own risk.
These methods can possibly ruin your coins causing blemishes.
If you still wish to clean them then risk only the low-grade Indian coins.