Learn how to clean coins with HYDROGEN PEROXIDE. See what happened when I tried CLEANING MY COINS this way!
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WARNING: All DIY methods of coin cleaning will damage the coins! This video is for demonstration purposes only on coins that are only worth face value. If you’re thinking of cleaning coins with Hydrogen Peroxide… you’ll want to watch this video first!
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⚡TIMESTAMPS FROM THE VIDEO⚡
00:00 – How To Clean Coins With Hydrogen Peroxide
00:10 – Seeing For Myself If Hydrogen Peroxide Cleans Coins
00:44 – Coins In this Experiment: 1 Penny And 1 Quarter
00:54 – #1: Put Coin In Bowl Filled With Hydrogen Peroxide
01:16 – #2: Soak Coin In Hydrogen Peroxide For 24 Hours
01:26 – #3: Result After Cleaning Quarter w/ Hydrogen Peroxide
02:04 – #4: Result After Cleaning Penny w/ Hydrogen Peroxide
03:09 – #5: Rinse Coins With Water
03:23 – #6: Dry Coins
03:33 – #7: More Obvious Results After Drying The Coins
04:06 – SUMMARY: How To Clean Coins With Hydrogen Peroxide
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TRANSCRIPT:
Hey guys! This is Josh with The Fun Times Guide to Coins. And as you see here today, we have some hydrogen peroxide. Now, what’s up with this? Well, a lot of people are asking online if hydrogen peroxide cleans coins. And I wanted to find that out for myself. Because even though I don’t really myself advocate cleaning coins at all… it’s nevertheless to me a curiosity.
I’ve never really seen hydrogen peroxide listed as one of the prime coin cleaning solutions. In most cases, it’s either ketchup or baking soda, vinegar, salt, toothpaste. I have seen hydrogen peroxide listed on a very rare occasion as a solution. But because many people are asking about this, I wanted to find out for myself. So I took two very low value coins that would not be monetarily damaged, if you will, by cleaning them here.
As you see, I have actually only half-submerged them. I have a Washington quarter made from copper-nickel clad. And I have a bronze Lincoln cent. And I wanted to see exactly how the two halves compare. Those two halves being the submerged (or the potentially clean side) and the unsubmerged (or unclean side). So we’ll go ahead and pull it out in a minute. They’ve been soaking here for 24 hours. And we’ll see what a day in hydrogen peroxide does to a coin.
So let’s go ahead and I’ll pull out the Washington quarter first. Let’s see here. And… it looks like it has almost no effect at all on this coin. I can maybe see… maybe see a little bit of an indication there’s a cleaner left and a more original right. But that’s just to my eye, and I don’t really think at all we’ve seen any kind of significant cleaning here. So it would be my conclusion in this experiment that the hydrogen peroxide was not very effective in cleaning this copper-nickel clad Washington quarter.
Let’s see if the results with the bronze Lincoln cent are any different. Alright. I’m just going to pull it out. And let’s see…Well! Once again, we see that maybe there’s a slight difference. But really… after 24 hours in the hydrogen peroxide, I would say that the difference between the clean and unclean sides is almost zilch. I mean, maybe the right’s a little bit… gosh… Alright, maybe right in there. If you can see where I’m running my fingernail. Right along there. This side was submerged, and there is a line. There’s a distinction there. But… And it’s not just the liquid. You can see that even after rubbing off the liquid, the hydrogen peroxide side has still some kind of a distinction there. But it’s marginal at best. Maybe the right side is a little bit lighter. But that’s about it.
I would not say that this experiment has yielded very stark results. So, we’ll go ahead and rinse off these coins. I pulled the stopper up here in the sink — so the coins will not fall down the sink. We’ll rinse them off under cold running water — like so. And turn the water off just to conserve our resources. Then we will pack — not rub. But pat dry the coins so as not to impart any hairline scratches. And we’ll call this experiment maybe at best a marginal result. But as you see… Yeah, I mean there’s a difference. The right half is a little bit maybe more resilient looking. It has a lighter color to it maybe. But it didn’t really lighten the coin that much at all. And copper, by the way, is a highly reactive metal.
So if we’re going to see any results, it’s going to be with the copper. And even with a copper Lincoln cent, it’s not a huge difference. Now with this copper-nickel Washington quarter, my goodness… I would say maybe a faint difference at best. So there you have it! Cleaning coins with hydrogen peroxide may not be effective. I say try it yourself at your own risk — with the knowledge that I do not support cleaning coins. From the standpoint of the fact that most collectors prefer having uncleaned original coins. But these are the results we get here with the hydrogen peroxide. So, thank you for watching. I hope this video has been helpful to you. And happy collecting!
