For those who do pressed pennies! (older ones)

[TheDisneyBunch]

Well after all morning of trying to find ways to clean up the old copper pennies we have set aside to use at Disney in the press machines we have found a way!!!

Behold...OLD...CLEAN pennies!

Here are the old pennies before cleaning them..

These are all pennies before 1980. Most of them are between 1964-1978.

here is the after..

Half cleaned...Half untouched..

Want to know how???

yeap..... Ketchup!

We had tried, dawn soaking overnight, ajax, pine sol and even bleach. Nothing else worked! Well the ketchup sure did. We were amazed! HEHE At least we have some clean copper pennies now to take.

Just wanted to share just in case anyone wondered the best way to clean them.

 

[Giggles]

That's so great! I would have never thought that Ketchup would do the trick! Thanks for the tip!

 

[We-Luv-Disney]

That is so cool! Glad to know! We did a lot of pressed pennies last year for my 7 yr old DS but we lost most of them. Now he wants to go clean all his pennies to press in December! Thanks for sharing!!

 

[tallpkb]

LOL!!!!! And how did you figure out that might work?? Anyway, once the pennies are "pressed", do they look significantly better if they're bright and shiny to start with? I didn't know it would make a big difference, but if it does, I'll break out the ketsup!

 

[Snurk71]

I think it's the vinegar in the ketchup that reacts with the metal, cleaning them. You can dump the pre-1982 pennies (there was a change in the material makeup of the penny that year, I think) in a little vinegar and they will clean up just like the ketchup pictures.

 

[disneymomtofour]

Vinegar in the ketchup is exactly what I was thinking, too! Our pennies are soaking in vinegar right now. It works great, but it is stinky! Can't wait to squish me some pennies!

 

[thelionqueen]

Thanks for the GREAT advice, never thought of cleaning the pennies, I just saved the brightest ones. Now, we can have a penny cleaning party... It doesn't take much to make me more excited to be going to WDW

 

[daisylou]

I have also heard that soaking in regular coca-cola overnight will do the trick!

 

[AbbysFamily]

Wow.. This peaked my interested... It turns out your not the first to figure this out. I did a search. Someone else figured out the ketchup trick and isolated it. He even quoted a chemist who explained it.

Bottom Line --- If you don't want to use ketchup, you don't need the tomato.. The important ingredients in the cleaning process are vinegar and salt! So the ketchup will work great (as will taco sauce, etc)... But on your own - just add some common table salt to some vinegar.

 

[mickeysaver]

I have been using Ketsup for years to clean my pennies. It does indeed work wonders. It was really great of you to post the pictures to prove the point too. Maggie

 

[TheDisneyBunch]

Glad to share! Hubby has heard this a while back and did not think anything about it til after trying everything else..lol I was asking him if toothpaste would work and that made him think of the ketchup trick he heard about. I am just glad we were able to clean them in something. Yes salt and vineger work but we just did not have any viniger and so we had no other chocies..lol

 

[HaleyB]

Steel Pennies

The WWII pennies made of steel look really cool flattened. My kids love them and it makes them unique. Most coin stores will sell the steel pennies for cheap as there are a ton of them and they are not really collectable. I think we got them for about 5 cents each. My FIL is a coin collector and said we paid too much for them! He just sent us a load of them for our next trip.

 

[Luigi's Girl]

My goodness. Is that what is does to our stomachs?

 

[AbbysFamily]

My goodness. Is that what is does to our stomachs?

Naa... Its a chemical reaction that gets rid of the oxidation.. Your stomach acid is itself probably much stronger!

 

[HaleyB]

My goodness. Is that what is does to our stomachs?

That is what it does to your teeth In HS we brought in baby teeth and put them in Coke over night... they dissolved.