A tutorial on cleaning coins with KETCHUP. Does ketchup damage coins? Ketchup definitely works best on copper & bronze COINS!
RELATED VIDEO: Playlist For OTHER WAYS To Clean Coins Yourself
RELATED ARTICLE: How To PROPERLY Clean Coins
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 Ketchup… you’ll want to watch this video first!
============================
⚡TIMESTAMPS FROM THE VIDEO⚡
00:00 – How To Clean Coins With Ketchup
00:33 – Why Ketchup Is Used For Cleaning Coins
00:53 – Which Coins Ketchup Works Best With
01:02 – What Happens If You Clean Copper Pennies w/Ketchup
02:39 – Step 1: Squirt Ketchup On Coin & Let Set 5 Minutes
02:41 – Step 2: Rinse Ketchup Off Coin Using Cold Water
03:00 – Result #1: A Newer Penny Cleaned with Ketchup
03:36 – Result #2: An Older Penny Cleaned with Ketchup
04:11 – How You Can Tell That A Coin Has Been Cleaned
05:33 – Result #3: Another Penny – Now Brighter In Color
06:41 – The Bottom Line About Cleaning Coins With Ketchup
07:09 – How Cleaning Coins Affects Their Value
TRANSCRIPT:
Hello, this is Josh with The Fun Times Guide To Coins. We get a lot of questions about how to clean coins. And I am NOT an advocate for cleaning coins. I’ll make that very clear here in this video. I do not feel that anyone should clean their coins – especially with the intent of trying to quote/unquote “improve their appearance” because that actually does a couple things. (A) That messes with the original surface. And (B) that could actually cause irreparable damage to the surface of the coin through etching. But ketchup is oftentimes an agent that is recommended for cleaning coins.
And I do want to address these questions about well… “Can you clean coins with ketchup?” Or “Can ketchup clean coins?” The answer to that is a YES – with the caveat that it may not work to the effect that you would like it to. Ketchup is really best – if you ARE gonna clean coins – ketchup is best with copper or bronze coins. It really is not as effective with silver or gold or other other metals. So, I’m going to show you the effects here of what happens when you clean coins with ketchup.
I have two Lincoln pennies here. Lincoln pennies as you probably know contain copper. Those made prior to 1983 are 95% copper and 5% zinc (or tin and zinc, based on the year you’re talking about). Later pennies – those made in the latter part of 1982 to the modern times (to the current times) for circulation – are actually copper-coated zinc. But still, the outside of the coin is copper. So it could work with a penny of any date except for 1943 – which was the year that steel cents were made to help ration copper for World War II. So as these two pennies here soak in their ketchup, I’d like to go ahead and see what happens when we use ketchup on a coin to remove tarnish or remove toning. Again, I do not… I don’t advocate this at all. But I’m going to just for the sake of the video demonstrate what happens when we clean coins that are copper.
So let’s go ahead and apply… (Whoops, I have a terrible aim, don’t I?) There we go. Kind of hard when you’re not looking at the coin itself. Anyway… And thank goodness we have plastic squeeze bottles! I remember as a kid having to use the glass bottles – which I think in my mind’s a more authentic ketchup experience. But having to tap the rear end of that bottle… that would have made for a mess everywhere! So at least we have squeeze bottles today to use with ketchup. Anyway, we’ll let this soak for a little bit. As I rinse off the ketchup from these two pennies, you’ll note that i did pull the stopper up on the sink in case the coin decides to go down the drain. It’s just a preventative. So let’s go ahead and turn the water on and rinse off this copper using some cold water. And let’s see what we’ve got here. This is a…
Wow! That worked pretty well because actually both the obverse (or the head side) and reverse (or tail side) looked about the same in coloration. And that ketchup really did a number on getting that dark coloration off. You can see some areas are… (I’ll turn the water off to preserve water… save water.) You can see that there are some areas where the ketchup didn’t quite maybe do as thorough a job as in the main area of the design and the fields. But I’ll tell you what, the ketchup really did remove the patina. Let’s try this older penny here… Let’s see what it did. Oh, I can already tell it removed a lot of that patina. Yep, look at that! All right, you can see… Take a look at this… All right, see that color there? That patina? That was the color of this entire penny – both obverse and reverse. See that’s the tails side. That’s the color this was a few minutes ago. So simply soaking these pennies for what? 5 minutes? In regular ketchup… it does work. But I want to show you something just so you see. See… I’m not sure if you can tell the color or not through the film (the screen).
But…As a collector, I would see this coin and right away know that it was cleaned. This is not a natural color for a copper coin of this age. What… 1969 is over 53 years ago! This is not a natural color for a circulated copper coin of this age. It’s got kind of a shallow appearance. And you can still see in the recesses – like, for example, in Lincoln’s eye and around his forehead and such, and by the rim. You can see that there is some darker coloration there. So if I saw this coin, I would know right away it was 99.9% most certainly cleaned. But if you’re looking to brighten your pennies, you know… it does the trick. Again, I do not advocate this at all. I am not much a fan… I’d rather see this penny look like this – with this nice chocolate original coloration or patina. Than to see this – which clearly to me obviously is lightened… cleaned… That’s my opinion. I think that opinion is that of many collectors.
But again, I do want to show you for the sake of experimentation what happens when you clean a coin with ketchup. Let’s look at this penny here – which we had submerged in ketchup a few minutes ago. Remember how it looked a few minutes ago. Let’s see what happens when we reveal the rinsed surface. And pardon the mess in the sink – that is just the ketchup from this experiment. There we go… Let’s see what happened. Well yeah, I mean… it looks brighter. That’s for sure. You’ll remember that this had a much darker coloration, a much darker patina than it does now. But, well there you go!
So that’s what happens when you clean a coin with ketchup. Yes, it removes the dark coloration. Yes, it’s effective. But it may not be the effect you’re looking for. So, there you go. That’s what happens when you clean coins with ketchup. I do not advocate this. I’ll say it what? For the fourth time now?… Do as you will. But that’s how you clean coins copper coins with ketchup. So thank you for bearing with me here on this experiment. I hope that this helped a little bit – at least in showing what happens when you clean coins with ketchup. Again, it’s most effective with copper or bronze coins. Not with silver. Not with nickel. Not with gold. And as you might surmise, ketchup is also good for lightening you know brass doorknobs, copper mementos. For example knick knacks. I don’t… Again, I will not condone any of that myself. Because I like things original. I think I speak for a lot of collectors. I think they’re the same way. I can tell you, in the marketplace cleaned coins go for much less than their values if left original. That’s your little friendly warning there from your fellow collector of coins. But do as you will. That’s how you clean coins with ketchup. Thanks for watching and please like and share if you enjoyed this video. And hope to talk to you again!
