Probably Another Stupid Question

virginiagentleman

This may be a dumb question but here goes. What is the process for safely removing U.S. gold eagles from mint tubes? I have purchased several mint tubes of $50 gold eagles and have had difficulty removing the coins from the tubes; the first tube did not go well. I managed to ding one coin. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Wally Estes.

Longacre

I can't help with your question, but let me be the first to say, Welcome!!

wam98

LanLord

In a similar question recently (only regarding silver eagles) there were answers like stick the tube in the freezer for a while, this will cause the metal to shrink slightly while the plastic will remain the same. Should be enough to help extract the coins.

Someone else suggested liquid nitrogen, I guess if you have access to the stuff it would be more effective than a freezer.

I have seen dealers take an open roll and using a very rapid movement, slam the open end down on a table, this was very effective, but I don't know if the first coin out gets any impact damage or not. Possibly if you had a velvet lined surface like coin stores use for sorting coins it would minimize any potential problems.

LanLord

Oh yeah, welcome to the loony bin.

PerryHall

Do a search. There have been many threads on this topic. Some suggestions involve freezing the tube to make it brittle and easy to break and others have suggest heating the tube (hair drier or hot water) to make it expand. Also, welcome!!!

my3cents

the freezer thing works

CarlWohlforth

Welcome!

I guess I didn't see the freezer suggestion when I was trying to get Silver Eagles out of a tube. I will remember to try it next time! They sure were stuck in there...

pontiacinf

I tryed using mind control to get them out, im still waiting for mine to comply

oh and welcome

pharmer

Hi!

BigE2

Stick 'em in the freezer for an hour. Make sure the tube is tightly closed. when you take them out, use an oven mitt to keep tube from warming in your hand.
Pop the top off, put a clean cloth over the end and flip it onto your work surface. should be a perfect neat stack of metal.

If you want these coins to continue to look good, you need to prevent moisture from condensing on the cold metal. never place the cold coins immediatly into a holder! I rinse them in room temp acetone to drive off moisture and warm them up a bit.
I have had extremly good luck doing it this way with all metals.

Conder101

The liquid nitrogen method was for extracting coins from the old early 1960's tubes that have shrunk tightly around the coins. That is overkill for the US eagles stuck in the government tubes. The freezr method should work fine for them. (A normal home freezer usually won't get cold enough to effectively work on the 1960's tubes.)

Bunker

shmort6552

Unless the tube is important to you, carefully slice it open down the side.