Tumbling Surprises + Video

Today was the day I marked off to sit around and tumble some clad to get rolled up. I had $20+ sitting around that needed to be sorted, and then tumbled. And being as such, I figured I'd video tape the event and add to the plethora of tumbling videos already on the 'net.

After all was said and done, I came across 2 BICEN Quarters I didn't know I had, as well as 3 '65 Quarters and 2 '65 Dimes. So close to silver... yet so very, very far away. No silver eggs this time around.

I had to edit out 2:30 out of the video to make the time length requirement for YouTube, so it ends rather abruptly. Enjoy the video! Any questions please comment!

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!

Chicago Dual Drum Tumbler: TWO THUMBS UP

After dropping off the lil' one at school this morning I was dead set on hitting up the local Harbor Freight. I've never been to one before, and honestly, in my naive opinion, I figure most of what they sell is cheap crap, so that's probably reason number one I've never stepped foot in one.

So I drive on over, thankfully only maybe 5 miles away... walk in and wow! This place is like man heaven, haha. They pretty much have everything a guy could want in that store. So really having no clue where to start looking, I just browsed around. I go down the aisle with home safes in it and low and behold I find the highly sought after Cen-Tech "pinpointer". Two on the shelf. A little farther down the same aisle and I come across some jeweler style magnifying glasses... I pick one up... further down, coin rolls and coin sorters... I couldn't resist. I did also see plain white nail aprons for like $1.99, can't beat that. When my TC's and White's aprons get too trashy, I know where to go for a backup!

I end up looking all over for that Chicago Dual Drum tumbler. Nearing the power tools, I see it. Up on the very top shelf, only two of them. I'm tall enough so I scooped it up. Turns out it was on special for $36 (I think regularly around $50-something?). So I bought that, but couldn't find the replacement belts or the abrasive to put in it anywhere, even though it was advertised in their store flier. I didn't have time really to browse much more, so I purchased and left.

The Chicago Tumbler, IMO, is pretty sweet. It gets the job done quite well and doesn't hurt the wallet. I tumbled about $3 in pennies, $5 in dimes, $2 in nickels and $10 in quarters... each for about half an hour with no abrasive, just water and dish soap. And jeebus, I was very surprised at how much brown came out of those things, haha. I know with abrasive it would have been better, but at least they are much cleaner than when they went in.

Two thumbs up for the Chicago Dual Drum Tumbler!