I have some Copper Large Cents that I would like to clean up and put in a display. Maybe a small shadow box with a glass face or something. So I have experminted with electrolysis on a copper coin.
I used an old phone charger (5.5 VDC @ 200Ma). Made a salt water and lemon juice brine for the liquid medium. Used a silver plated spoon for the positive pole. I placed the coin in for about an hour. At the end of an hour the silver plated spoon was losing the silver plate. The brine looked like swamp water. The coin definately had lost some of the crud but had turned a dark black. I took a dremel tool with a felt burnishing tip and a paste of baking soda and removed the black tarnish.
It looks like I could do this with a Copper Large Cent. I am more interested in the display as opposed to the resale value of the coin.
For the purpose of a display , which coin looks better to you? Unfortunately I can not seem to get a true representation of the coppery color of the coin to show in these pictures. Holding the coin in my hand it has the copper shine of a new penney.
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