>>20108804I've been using british pennies to practice polishing, using meguiars cutting compound. If the coin has several whizzes and knicks, ill go as rough as maroon scotchbrite followed by the grey one. For the polish, I mix it with a drop of dawn soap as well. Ive polished my walking krug at least 5 or 6 times, weighing it after and my scale which goes to several decimals and it doesn't show an altered value, polishing does however remove material but not as much as you'd think. If you add a bunch of scratches, its likely to remove more. Also the medium used to contain the polish is important as well, a suitable material will be able to be impregnated with the polish. I use these 3m White pads, they're scotchbrite without the abrasive in it. Also ive used jeans and those blue napkins, they work but since they are softer, the polish is not working as hard as you are.
If you use steel wool make sure its 0000 steel wool, a while back i I saw someone wrote they use steel wool but they didnt specify that its the finest "grit".
Also i think the meguiars is slightly acidic, if i dont wash off the coin with soap, it gets this weird unnatural looking toning from the film of polish remaining.
>tl;dr maroon scothbrite, grey scotchbrite, the meguiars polishing compound 