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As an experiment, we took some shiny pennies and laid them on a vinegar-soaked paper towel. After a couple of days, they turned quite green on the face-up side.
And stayed shiny on the side that was against the paper towel.
Then we soaked them in olive oil for a couple of days, because I know that’s one way you can clean very old coins. The “green” side looked a little better, although the pennies definitely showed some marking from their journey.
The “shiny” side actually looked a little worse, especially where a couple pennies had overlapped by accident during the vinegar portion of the experiment!
Next time we’ll try lemon juice and salt for a couple days, like we read about at sunnydaytodaymama.
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I really like this experiment! But I know my girls will have no patience for it whatsoever! (Can I just send you my pennies to clean! ha! ha!)
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How interesting! I always learn something from your experiments.
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I didn’t know that the pennies will get green – wouldn’t it apply only to really old pennies that were still made with copper? I recall reading somewhere that newer pennies don’t have copper in them. We tried to clean our pennies in vinegar solution – this was a big hit.
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maryanne Reply:
March 28th, 2011 at 11:14 am
@Natalie – These were new(ish) pennies, and they still turned green – at least three. I think they are still copper-plated?
Have you seen this website with ideas of how to clean pennies? We might try some of them:
http://www.pennycollector.com/tips_clean.html
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We have a zillion pennies in piggy banks, jars, etc., so I’ll have to try this. I think my daughters might have the patience for it.
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Looks like you had some interesting results from your experiments! Sunnyboy will enjoy giving these methods a try. Thanks for linking to our cleaning coins post. :)
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I know a couple of people have linked up with penny leaning experiments on science Sunday I’ve seen ketchup used and UT worked fairly fast
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This is something I’ve wanted to do for about 3 years, but never have. Thanks for the reminder. :)
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OH, this is a fun one here too! Haven’t done it with Jack yet, so thank you for the reminder!
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Fantastic experiment!
Kerri
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We did ketchup and was amazed at the difference.
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MaryAnne Reply:
February 16th, 2013 at 10:00 pm
I need to try that!
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