1907 Indian Gone Bad....

Wow that coin looks way nicer than before! This is one of the few exceptions where cleaning a coin might have raised the value.

You saved her!

Nina will put her in a flip and keep her safely in a box of IHCs and wheats from the 1910s so she won't gather any further damage. She'll have a good home here for sure.

Thank you again so much, Raymo!

Ray, just got your letter (in perfect condition, incidentally), and she's BEAUTIFUL!!! If it's all right with you, I may ask the mods if I can take a picture and make her my avatar (since we've picked up another Proof IHC around here--I have no problem sharing an avatar, except that then I keep seeing posts, not checking the name, and then going "when did I write that?"). I love the "mid" toning that you added after cleaning her up--not the super-dark brown I'm used to, but not the incongruous bright 'n' shiny that so many cleaned coins have. It looks wonderfully natural.

Having seen the coin in-hand, I will repeat what I said before: although the methods used may be considered "cleaning" by PGCS or ANACS, I don't feel this was a cleaning at all--I feel it was a near-expert restoration. I held the coin as close to my eyes as I could without losing focus and could just barely make out some teensy, tiny . . . I don't even want to call them "scratches," they're so minor, where I assume you had to scrape at the solder. (And for the record, my close eyesight is 20/18--BETTER than perfect. So for me to have trouble seeing it, you did a fantastic job.) I would happily call this coin AU-58 details (since, as mentioned, a lot of folks would consider it "cleaned"), maybe even a grade better.


And for any coin-cleaning purists, I'd be happy to take some pictures in daylight tomorrow and let you see a closer "after" to compare with the disastrous "before." This is definitely the coin, and the cleaning job, that is the exception proving the rule.

Finally, again, Ray: thank you so, so much for this lovely lady. This is a coin I'll own and cherish with pride.

I'm shocked the solder didn't do more damage. If not for that ding in the headdress, I'd say MS-grade before the solder was poured on--someone clearly didn't know what a treasure they had. This coin is so lovely, it makes me sad the design ever went away.

Carrying a coin around definitely works - I've been doing this for a long time to retone cleaned copper coins

could a grading company tell it was cleaned ?