How to Clean Pennies with Everyday Things

Dirty pennies got you down? We have 7 brilliant ways to clean pennies for crafts with stuff you already have at home!

Course Crafts

Cuisine Basics

Keyword Clean Pennies, Penny Crafts

Total Time 10

Cost -

In a small non-metal bowl pour 1 teaspoon of table salt and 2 tablespoons of vinegar. Stir until the salt dissolves. Add more vinegar if necessary.
Place your pennies inside of the salt and vinegar solution and allow to sit for 3 minutes. Remove from solution and scrub with a toothbrush. Allow to an additional minute at a time, as needed, to soften up the gunk enough to scrub it away. Once clean remove salt and vinegar with hand soap and a good rinse.

Squeeze ketchup onto your pennies, enough to cover but not a lot of excess. Allow the pennies to sit in the ketchup 5 minutes.
Using the ketchup on the penny and a toothbrush, give the coin a good scrub. Repeat the process as needed. Once clean, remove ketchup with hand soap or dish soap and a good rinse and then towel dry.

Apply Brasso to surface of the penny and wait 2-3 minutes. Using a paper towel or cloth wipe away the cleaner and lightly buff the surface. Apply more Brasso and wait again for any areas that didn’t come away clean. Once clean, rinse the pennies off with soap and water and dry them off.
NOTE * Brasso has strong ammonia fumes so be sure to use it in a well ventilated area and protect your hands and eyes.

In a small, non-metal bowl, pour a dark cola over your pennies until completely covered. Allow the pennies to soak 3-6 hours.
Remove pennies from the cola and lightly dip a toothbrush (or other method of scrubbing) into the soda and then salt. The pennies should come clean without much scrubbing. If needed, soak the pennies in cola checking after each hour to see if they come away clean. Once clean remove soda and salt with a was under the tap using hand or dish soap. Towel dry.

Lightly dip a toothbrush in vinegar. Press the wet brush into baking soda. Scrub the penny in long strokes applying a decent amount of pressure. Reapply vinegar and soda as needed to continue scrubbing. Once clean rinse with soap and water and dry off.
The slowest of all methods, if you don’t have anything else on hand and just need 1 or 2 pennies cleaned an eraser will work in a pinch. Just take an eraser and rub away the gunk from the surface of the penny. This method is more difficult to work into the nooks and crannies but the finished pennies do have a lot of nice definition where they stay “dirty” in the crevices. Just take care when using an eraser from a pencil, once the eraser has worn away the metal that holds the eraser on will scratch the surface of the penny quite easily.

Soak pennies in lemon juice for 2 minutes. Scrub the gunk away with a toothbrush. For really set on gunk you can dip your toothbrush in either salt or baking soda to add an abrasive to the equation. Be sure to quickly rinse any cleaned pennies with soap and water to stop the acid eating away at the coin and turning it black. Towel dry.