Cleaning Tokens

[MajesticAuto]

Anyone have a good method of cleaning corroded or excessively dirty tokens ?

 

[Danny]

he he he...make the kids do it! LOL When I was growing up that is how I learned about ALL the jobs I NEVER wanted to do when I became an adult.

That wasn't much help was it?

 

[MEP001]

The presoak I use, which is a very high alkaline, will clean up brass and copper just by soaking overnight.

 

[borumrm]

I don't remember where I read it but I think it was on this forum awhile back but someone said putting tokens in a small electric cement mixer along with a 5lb bag of rice and letting it spin overnight cleans them just like new. I have thought about doing this but have not had the spare dollars to buy a mixer just for this but one day I will get around to it as we have 30 or 40 thousand tokens floating around at any given time and some of them really need to be cleaned.

 

[Mr.Aap]

Rent a mixwe.....A low ph pre-soak will work as well....

 

[MEP001]

You can probably find rock polishers on eBay really cheap, won't do a lot of tokens at once, but it'll do the dirtiest ones.

 

[jprb]

You can use a brass tumbler (similar to the rock polishers) which is normally used to clean the brass cases of bullets. They use ground up corn cobs or walnut hulls with a powdered polish added to them to clean. They make brass come out better than new, so it should work for tokens, too. You should be able to find them at any shooting supply store.

JRPB

 

[SCS]

I think those suggestions are overkill. My tokens are the high polish chrome looking finish and many of them got alot of rust stain on them sitting in a very wet vault for too long. I found just soaking them in a jar of CLR for a few hours made them look like new.

 

[Mr. Clean]

Pick up gallon of dishwasher scale remover at you local restaurant supply house. Dilute according to instructions and then add or subtract according to need. A 5 gal. pail works well, especially with lid - solution can be stored and reused. I have a smaller bucket with drain holes drilled in the bottom - just load, soak, rinse and dry. I do this with all of my coins. They seem to count easier and keep the changer hoppers cleaner. Don't know if the customers notice, but it it makes me feel better.