Polishing a 1 ruble coin from 1977

A good friend of mine who knows my love for trinkets that tells a certain story or are of a certain time period presented with with an interesting gift: A Soviet Union 1 ruble coin from 1977. Besides being an artefact of a past era, the design of the coin itself is pretty cool with etched letters in the edge of the coin rather than just simple rifling which is more normal.

Given its age and it being a coin that was in actual circulation, it had its fair share of wear and tear. While there is little I can do about the dents and the scratches, I decided on giving it a polish.

Here it is in its unpolished glory:

Its lustre or lack thereof shows that this coin has passed through the hands of many a good hard-working member of the proletariate

I first tried my hands with some scrubbing cream and a tooth brush, and it managed to take some of the gunk off, but it did not make much of a difference:

Scrubbing the reverse of the coin with an old toothbrush and scrubbing cream. The logo is the logo of the coming Olympic Games in Moscow in 1980

I then grabbed some brass polish and using that and some kitchen paper yielded much better results. The result is not perfect due to the wear and tear, and possibly the alloy used for this coin, but I am nonetheless pleased with the result:

Obverse of the coin. This side turned out the best

Reverse of the coin, showing the Olympic logo and the year.