Tumbling Day

I woke up this morning with a mission... tumble a few hundred coins to roll up. However, to do this efficiently, I needed to go grab some aquarium gravel.

So with my long list in hand off I went. First stop was Wal*Mart, where I had to pick up some other stuff besides the rocks. Then I was off to Candl Coins to pick up some more 2x2's and a few Air-Tites. After that I stopped by Harbor Freight to pick up some coin rolls... and they finally had a nice cheaper non-digital caliper I've been wanting to grab, so I did. I also picked up a great set of knee-saving knee-pads. As of late, diggin' in the dirt has really been brutal and making them hurt a bit. I'm too young for that.

Last stop was B&N. I wanted to see what sort of local history books they had. There was a great book on Chesapeake, VA history, but $20 seemed kinda high for the book, so I didn't bother.

But back to the task at hand, tumbling. I have the Chicago Dual-Drum Tumbler. A lot of people give it flack, but I've never had a problem with it, and it does a great job.

I was tumbling roughly $3 in memorials, and $5 in dimes... each in separate drums of course. Threw in some rocks, then the coins, then 2 tbsp of Orange Grease Lightning.... tumbled for an hour. The result was great. I've tumbled before, but never used the rocks, just let the coins tumble against themselves. Using the aquarium rocks really makes a huge difference. I've say 90% of the coins, which went in caked in dirt, were dark, and just crappy... came out looking either shiny, or flat and super clean.

Nice lazy day, was nice to get some of those coins rolled up instead of laying around in bags. Tomorrow morning, I'm going gold hunting, wish me luck!