Coin collectors? Cleaning and storage of silver dollar

[scottmandue]

My 90 year old mom is clearing out her house... she insists I take the silver dollar... I resist but don't want to argue with my 90 year old mom.

Not selling but looked it up on ebay just to get an idea of it's worth and out of curiosity... apparently a 1989 silver dollar goes for around $35.

So what is the best way to clean and store such an item?

[on2wheels52]

Just leave it alone, it has 'toned'.
I never called Silver Eagles "silver $'s" since they were never issued at $1 but are tied to the price of silver.
Jim

[ckelly78z]

I think it's kinda like barn find cars, wiping off the patina ruins the value.

[Hugh R]

Yep, you'll ruin the value if you do anything to clean it.

Having said that, if you have other silver you want to clean, don't use silver polish, it removes silver. Get a pot of water pour in a bunch of table salt and put in a piece of uncoated aluminum (not aluminum foil, which is coated) and the silver item, boil it. It will convert silver oxide (tarnish) into aluminum oxide on the aluminum. You can then take some scouring powder to take the AL-Ox off of the aluminum. Good for fine detail cleaning of silver.

[GH85Carrera]

Yep, never clean a coin more that to wipe dust off. Leave it in that package as is. Likely it is worth just the silver value.

[mjohnson]

Got a roll of $0.50s for the toddler to play with and put in her purse.

Surprise! One was a '64, and in amazing condition minus a canvas-like imprint of goo/stuff.

How do you value things like that - beyond simple metal content? By "amazing condition" I mean no visible scratches on the faces and razor sharp "coin edges" on the edge -- but huge burlap-sack stain across everything.

Clearly I'm not a coin geek, and the delta between silver value and the best is maybe ten bucks.

Likely it'll go into the kid's "treasure" box...