In Episode 1, I discussed cleaning pennies with a technique I discovered through Penny Collector.
Unfortunately I didn’t think to take pictures when I started so you could see how tarnished the pennies were to begin with, but here are the pictures I did take.
After coating the pennies with ketchup, I let them sit for awhile. Several hours, in fact because we went to breakfast and did some shopping before I rinsed them off. I was really impressed with how clean the pennies were after rinsing the ketchup off. I was disappointed to see that the ketchup had tarnished the elongated pennies I had, though. These were post-1982 pennies, and they obviously didn’t work the same.
The pennies were fairly dull after just the ketchup, but Penny Collector had a solution for that as well: use a baking soda and water paste. I made the paste and prepared to use it on the pennies.
I rubbed the paste on (and it should be a thick paste as suggested by the site – the grit helps make it shine, I think) and didn’t notice anything at first. After rinsing the pennies, though, it was clearly a big difference. Since it worked so well, I decided to try out the baking soda paste on the now tarnished elongated post-1982 coins.
Much to my relief, it worked like a charm!
If I didn’t know any better, I would never guess that these pennies were minted in 1982 or earlier. I can’t wait to get them pressed!
