How does tarnish affect the condition rating. The US coin book I got today mentions wear on the ingraving but nothing on tarnish. I got some silver war nickels off ebay. The lettering and everything on them isn't worn down but some are pretty dirty looking from tarnish.
good news is, even using the low price in the book it looks like at a minimum I'd brake even if I sold them right now.
Anything I should do to prevent further tarnish from building up?
Thanks


I also found out from the section in the book on commemorative coins that some actually are legal tender and can legally be spent at face value. granted that'd be stupid since they're sold at issue for multiple times the face value

Get Coin Collecting by Kenneth Bressett, and A guide book of United States coins 2005 ed. by R. S. Yeoman
Just type "Day Mount Coins" into a search engine and you can find stuff to seal them up.

cool, these look like they'd work well
www.coinholder.com/selfseal.html

Tarnish will knock the value down quite a bit. I don't know of any grading service that will take tarnished coins, and most people sell the tarnished coins in the "junk silver" piles.

Toning, however, might not bump up the value of the coin, but is considered acceptible. There are a lot of toned coins out there that were done in the kitchen sink with chemicals since the demand for toned coins started to rise a few years ago.

As for ccommemoratives, they are really a hit and miss - as long as they are issued by the US Mint. Don't buy the painted quarters or buy anything from Littleton Coins - you will loose money.

Some US Mint commemorative coins do really well - the Buffalo commemorative is in high demand, but some do very poorly.

I stick with the 10 coin silver sets - I have NEVER lost money with them. I just sold all my 1999 silver sets - bought for $30 a pop - sold them on Ebay for $175 - $225. I sold 10 of them.

Av.

It isn't tarnish...  it's petina.  

As silver coins will 'tarnish' as they age.  Tarnish is not wear.  Wear causes the grade of a coin to drop.

Don't try to clean your nickels (or any other coin, for that matter).  It will cause the value to decrease.

I don't plan on buying the commemoratives unless I see an auction for some way below the going price, just thought it was interesting that at least some of them actually are legal tender
I'm trying to luck out and find some pure silver rounds or bars for under spot price. but I saw the nickel auction and a quick online search indicated it was a good price, and I still think it was as the tarnish isn't all that bad and is only really on a few of them
I did see a few auctions for silver eagles that seemed below the normal price. have to buy a whole roll though