Coins stuck in round clear tubes - how to remove?

Coppernicus

I've got some BU wheat rolls that are jammed big time. Does anyone have a suggestion as to how to safely remove them? Any advice would be appreciated.

Mike

ksteelheader

Try sitting the tube in boiling hot water for about 5 seconds and then try to empty the tube. I did that once and it worked. You only want to do it quickly so that the tube expands and the coins don't get hot enough to expand. And, be careful not to burn yourself....Ken

FC57Coins

I've heard of people putting the tubes in the freezer first for about an hour to get the coins cold and then doing just what Ken said

Coppernicus

Thanks for the suggestions! I'll try it on some common dates before I attack the better ones.

Mike

ksteelheader

Hey, send some to me and some to Frank. We'll get them out and send them back....

cladking

I've heard of quite a few methods but could never get any to work for me.
Apparently some of the old plastic tubes had a tendency to shrink over the
years and they will conform very closely to the coins.

If nothing else works, put the roll in a vice so that you can use a hacksaw
along its lenght. Don't cut quite all the way hrough the plastic. Finish it off
with pliers.

gemtone65

I had the same problem, and last year asked Forum members for advice. Wet ice, dry ice, freezers, heat, boiling, etc. were all suggested solutions. None worked or even came close.

In the end, what I did was to saw away the closed end. Then I used a small hammer on this end of the roll. This procedure successfully dislodged the stuck coins. The price I paid was that the end coin was ruined. But, I did salvage the remainder.

ddink

<< <i>I've heard of people putting the tubes in the freezer first for about an hour to get the coins cold and then doing just what Ken said >>



NO! See my thread "frozen coins." All that does is run the risk of frosting your coins and it doesn't work anyway. Invert the tube on top of some soft towels and wrap a hammer or mallet with a couple of socks, then very gently tap around the bottom outside of the tube.

DO NOT for any reason freeze your coins

tsacch

Maxwells silver hammer?

carefully score the edge with a razor?

send them to acg?

haletj

<< <i>DO NOT for any reason freeze your coins >>



Uh oh. I put my unopenable tubes in the freezer for a day, then smashed the heck out of them with a hammer. It worked, the coins look fine. I hope they stay that way though.

foodude

Coppernicus

I have the same problem with some BU rolls of '44-S, '49-D, and '52-D Lincolns that I recently bought. I'm now waiting to see what you found to be successful.

melikecoins

To remove pennies from an old Meghrig tube.

Use a pair of pliers to remove the cap.

Use a 13/16 spark plug socket (with the rubber inside that holds the plug)

Place the end of the tube into the socket and rap on a hard surface.

The pennies will come out, rap after rap

Glen

ddink

<< <i>Uh oh. I put my unopenable tubes in the freezer for a day, then smashed the heck out of them with a hammer. It worked, the coins look fine. I hope they stay that way though. >>



As long as they look good I'm sure they're fine. Mine came out okay too, but only after I spent half an hour blow drying them. In my experience putting them in the freezer only caused condensation on the coins, it didn't help remove them from the roll. But this was with silver eagles, not sure about other types of tubes. At any rate, I'd avoid putting them in the freezer.

Frozen Coins Thread

Conder101

If you can get liquid nitrogen just use tongs and dip the roll in it. The plastic will crack up and shatter like a safety glass window

laserart

I used a laser to cut a tube lengthwise on two sides. It opened right up.

kyleknap

jdimmick

I had some that I put into a freezer that just wouldnt come out. I took them out and hit them with a mallet on the front concrete porch and it shattered like a glass bottle. Lincolns went everywhere, in fact when I due some yard work out front, I stll find evidence of that day. Thankfully, they were just 60-d Sm dates.

jim

BAJJERFAN

Put a soft cloth on a board and rap the open end of the tube agaist the covered board. As the coins come out you can temporarily fill the empty space thus created with loosely stuffed tissue so the coins don't bang against each other as they come out or use a pair of sidecutters and continually trim the tube so it gets shorter.

Tootawl

Use g097103's new toy:

MSD61

C4 but don't use HE

keets

torch!!

al h.

oreville

I once played around with those Mehrig rolls by doing the following:

(1) using pliers to open or break off the end cap.

(2) sticking the entire tube standing up into a quarter roll tube filled with mineral oil.

(3) Close the top of the quarter tube with its normal screw top.

(4) After 1 week take a toothpick soaked with mineral oil and try to peel the top coin off the tube.

(5) It took three weeks to remove all the coins from the tube.

garsmith

mnmcoin

Place about 5 or 6 rolls in the oven, just for about 8 minutes or so. This expands the plastic, but work quickly once the tube cools it will shrink back.

I have done about a thousand rolls this way.

morris <><

jobiwan115

<< <i>Place about 5 or 6 rolls in the oven, just for about 8 minutes or so. This expands the plastic, but work quickly once the tube cools it will shrink back.

I have done about a thousand rolls this way.

morris <>< >>



Well, scratch two airtites, but my Seated Liberty Halves are just fine. A few minutes in my toaster oven did the trick.

LincolnCentMan

I use a blow dryer, then tap the edge of the open tube onto a hard chemially inert plastick. They come out HOT!!!

-David

STONE

None of the above worked one time and I ended up carefully sawing the tube off. It turns out that the roll was filled with a bunched of white grained MS 1943 Cents.

clackamas

<< <i>I've heard of quite a few methods but could never get any to work for me.
Apparently some of the old plastic tubes had a tendency to shrink over the
years and they will conform very closely to the coins.

If nothing else works, put the roll in a vice so that you can use a hacksaw
along its lenght. Don't cut quite all the way hrough the plastic. Finish it off
with pliers. >>



That is what I do.

Cocoinut

When I worked in a coin shop 25-30 years ago, we would frequently buy collections that had coins in those "shrink" tubes. We would use a boxcutter to score the length of the tube; then, using 2 pairs of pliers, just pull it apart. Be sure to work over a soft surface, as the coins can sometimes fly all over.

I wouldn't recommend subjecting copper or bronze coins to either extreme heat or cold. They can become discolored too easily.

Jim

gremlin13

Just got seven early 1960s original BU nickel rolls. Two were merely taped shut and I could open them relatively easily. The first Whitman had a screw lid and it came right off. The second was apparently glued on and took pliers to tear the top off. This freed the coins. No coins were in any way damaged in these two rolls.

The remaining five rolls were the incredible shrinking Meghrigs. They were taped shut with Scotch tape that had yellowed and melted into the lid crack. These were stored in Georgia heat. They had shrunken tighter than a drum. I could not even get the lid off with pipe pliers.

Here's where I was able to combine methods into an immediately successful approach. I did the following:

(1). Selected a deep porcelain bowl.
(2). Deposited the recalcitrant rolls into its center, LIDS DOWN.
(3). I boiled a teapot to full rolling boil.
(4). I poured the boiling water an inch or more deep to completely immerse the lids.
(5). I let them sit in the boiling water for five minutes.
(6). I removed the tubes by hand, holding the unimmersed ends of the tubes.
(7). With little effort, I was able to use the pliers end-on and pry each lid off with downward angular force. Remember, these lids were immovable before the boil. I now had open tubes.
(8). I drained the water out of the bowl and put the tubes in, OPENED ENDS UP.
(9). I poured fresh boiling water all the way up to the lid joint on the necks.
(10). I allowed the plastic to heat for five minutes.
(11). I pulled the first tube carefully out, and placed it into my other hand, encased in an oven mitt.
(12). I placed a second padded oven mitt onto a stone floor and struck the tubes at a 45° angle. I carefully moved the tube over the mitt at each new strike to prevent the coins from hitting each other.
(13). I transferred the free coins to awaiting plastic plates in a single layer to cool.
(14). I repeated this process of reimmersion and banging until all coins were free.

This method took about half an hour for five incredibly shrunken tubes. It worked beautifully on nickel coins. Not a single one was damaged. I simply blotted off errant water droplets with a paper towel. All the coins are free. Unsearched and very high grade! Ready to be examined from the soft plastic plates from which any missed water will dry. And unlike China plates, they cannot scratch the coins.

Try this method on a stuck roll. You'll be glad you did. As an aside, I'd try the sealed zip lock bag freezer method on red uncirculated cents to avoid the heat darkening them. GOOD LUCK!

—Mike Bierman

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lcoopie

? PVC

LanceNewmanOCC

anyone that has ever encountered these rolls which should be pretty much any long-time numismatist, knows the complete nightmare these rolls are, especially with cents. i wish i had made a video of when i was opening some 60-d rolls that ended up contaning red unc sm/lg dates as well as several other dates. man alive was that probably the most challenging experience of my numismatic career! i did get a system down though. there are quite a few posts on this forum on this subject but the post above from 2022 sounds like a decent method. you kinda just gotta do what you gotta do in these situations.

ricko

I only had this issue once... back in the late nineties. I used a razor blade to slice down the length of the tube... not quite all the way through. Then I cut a flap at the top of the tube, removed the cap, then, using two needle nose pliers on each side of the razor cut, opened the slice all the way down. No damage to the cents. Cheers, RickO