Vent: I scrubbed my 1820 large cent with a toothbrush for 20 minutes and I want to throw up

Faith Baker · 2026-09-12T18:10:03.177759+00:00

Found it at an old farm field in Gettysburg two Saturdays ago, about 4 inches down, and it had this dark green crust all over the face. I thought it was just crud so I grabbed an old toothbrush and some dish soap and went at it like an idiot. Twenty minutes later the crust was gone and so was half the detail, the letters on the reverse are basically mush now. A guy at my club meeting said he did the exact same thing to a capped bust dime back in 2011 and still thinks about it. I looked it up after and the green stuff was patina that took 200 years to form and I scraped it off in my sink. Anyone know if there is any way to tell what grade it would have been, or do I just keep it as a reminder now?

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Vent: I scrubbed my 1820 large cent with a toothbrush for 20 minutes and I want to throw up | Ancient Coin Finds - Topic Shares