Pocket Pieces For The Purpose Of "Improvement:" OK Or Not?

I fully agree with DB, D7, 52, kbb and others against it. And well said above kbbpll

I don't think that every coin that's seen circulation should receive a details grade, that's absurd. But regular circulated coins were not purposely altered to hide a cleaning, become a lowball or otherwise increase the value. That's what it boils down to for me...

If it was purposely done to achieve a specific result it's altered.

To me a pocket piece isn't a circulating coin... Sure, it may be in your pocket with your other "spending" change... But it's not for spending and doesn't live the same life a circulating coin does.

I disagree that it's the same thing as normal change wearing down.. Most people don't keep the same coins in their pocket for a year straight.. Or multiple years. They get spent, thrown in cup holders, change hands, dropped, change hands again, get spent, given as change, dropped again etc. So a pocket piece may ware in the same manner as regular change but at a much, much faster rate. Bottom line for me is if it was done on purpose to change the coin, especially to achieve a profit, essentially creating a lowball or details free coin , it's wrong. It was purposely created to maximize profit. And it should be disclosed.

I think that carrying pocket pieces are just fine, for your own enjoyment, but not in hopes to sell for a profit. But trying create a lowball/cover a cleaning and then sell at coin as an honest lowball/details free coin it seems wrong IMHO.

You might say that whoever gets your coin after you (inherits, finds, etc) might not be able to tell, and it may be considered market acceptable by them. But KNOWING you altered the coin, no matter if it was done in a way that could occur naturally in a pocket (only over a longer time) bottom line is you altered the coin to achieve a desired result. And if being sold, especially for a decent sum of money it should be noted that the coin was "made" to be this way... It didn't just circulate.. It wasn't just in your pocket... It was purposely carried amongst other coins to change it's appearance/condition. It was purposely done to either hide a cleaning/lower the grade to make a lowball.

So if I can create an ultimate lowball/details free coin and sell it for good money then it's also totally fine if I put a coin in an envelope with some sulfur on my window for a year, or stick it in a potato for a while I should be able to sell it as a non altered "monster" toner? Or throw it in a tumbler to create a low ball/Uncleaned coin?

Or as a drastic example can I crack a super rare AU details coin, throw it in my pocket for as long as it takes and sell it as details free EF? Those crack out artists crack them from details slabs and sell them as details free... Which is wrong.. But if they all used them for a pocket piece to hide the cleaning first you'd all be ok with that? Let them sell away on ebay? I think not.

My question would be where do we draw the line between acceptable and unacceptable? And yes, I understand its a fine line, but if this is considered ok then it should also be quite alright to clean, dip, tone, lacquer, or whatever to a coin.. One that was previously slabbed or raw...

You arent deceiving anyone, the coin is exactly the way it appears. You arent putting fake color on it or smoothing the surface or cleaning it to make it look better it is exactly how it appears. Theres no deception if it wears down to a vf its a vf.




There really is no proper life of a circulating coin. Some sit in jars, others go in vending machines, others sit in a bank roll for decades, other gets dropped/spit shined/thrown in water fountain ect. Being in a pocket is part of that life style for lack of a better word.




Absolutely if it was cleaned and the cleaned layer is stripped off naturally from wear its no longer cleaned. Its takes years to do it though so its really not worth it for that. I'm sure theres probably a misconception that everyone thinks its easy. You can spend over a decade trying to make a lowball.

Sanders/rock tumblers/chemical toning is not the same as letting something wear on its own. Putting a coin in your pocket to wear it is no different than putting a coin in an album hoping it tones. If a pocket isn't acceptable than toned coins arent acceptable either because silver doesn't naturally chance colors without reacting with something else. Circulation coins dont tone colorfully

Me? Yes. If I were the one who'd deliberately worn the bad surface off of the coin, I would absolutely disclose that I'd done so, because I know there are those like you out there who draw such distinctions. I'd further expect to get less for the coin than if I'd failed to make that disclosure.

Because I would get more if I failed to disclose the pocketing. After all, the coin would have original surfaces. As a buyer, I would care not one whit if it was a pocketed piece, because I know there's no difference.

Except for that one (apparently) deadly word: deliberacy.

A rock tumbler almost certainly couldn't duplicate the subtle collisions which happen in a pocket or a pouch. Tumblers cause relatively violent impacts over a short period of time; I'm thinking that would be easily detectable unless you wear the coin into the AG-G class.

Here's some more food for thought, which I've withheld until the thread developed a little. When I say




...I mean ending up with something I'd consider a "market acceptable" coin, based on my own ability to detect deliberate alterations. Chances are I'm better at that than most, if only because I've always been interested in looking at coins on a microscopic level. Even cleaned ones. I have optics of sufficient resolution to clearly see the smallest niches in devices, and a fair amount of experience observing the effects of mechanical and chemical cleaning at serious magnification.

There's no doubt in my mind that I could detect a "deliberate" course of wear on a significant percentage of coins which even passed the TPG test. The TPG's only take a few seconds, and bring no significant magnification to bear. They'll never notice that pocket wear doesn't reach the small areas between digits, or the narrow fields between (for instance) tail feathers and leaves. But I'd see that, and know what I was looking at.

Pocketing a coin to wear away a Details-worthy scratch is one thing - once the scratch was gone, nobody would ever know. Pocketing a coin to hide a previous cleaning is a different proposition altogether, and until you get it perfect the coin is still deliberately altered with the accompanying stigma.

I've stated this to (hopefully) discourage those who might be considering a jump into this practice without thinking about the broader implications. It's not as easy as it looks, and not as easy as the majority of numismatists (and TPG's) make it to be because they do not perform complete diligence in their inspections.

But if I can't see the alteration, I'm giving you full market value, and I won't care how you got it there.

@unholyroller- That movie is a perfect example for this thread. I think what everyone can agree to is that there's a huge grey area with this. I personally have no issue with people doing that, but at the same time I don't mess with any coins I end up with- If I don't like how it looks, I either don't get it in the first place or sell it

I think one big issue here is the assumption for those against this practice that a coins condition is static and not dynamic. The idea that once a coin is pulled from circulation, its condition no longer changes. This is a completely wrong assumption IMO. For example, the color designation with copper cents. I've seen slabbed coins go from red to red brown to even almost fully brown. While this would have a negative effect on the value of the coin, the idea is the same. The condition changes, whether you want it to or not. Silver and copper will oxidize whether you want it to or not. The only way to stop that is to put it in a vacuum, which is unnatural.

What we as collectors think of as natural really isn't. Is a blast white morgan natural? Heck no. Is trying to preserve the surface in a oxidized free state natural? Of course not. It requires some type of intervention on our part to do that. What is natural is the normal wear and environmental effects associated with what coins are meant to do, buy things. This includes carrying them around in your pocket, have them contact other coins, hands and surfaces.

What is unnatural for a coin is to be put into a plastic flip, cardboard holder, slab or album. We want to so desperately stop the natural chemical processes that affect metal. How is that different than sticking a "problem" coin in your pocket? You are interevening to alter the coins condition. Really, the difference, if one, is really that putting the coin in your pocket changes the condition from static to dynamic, the natural outcome for a coin. How many circulated coins were once gunked up, cleaned, scratched etc. only to be put back into circulation. Years later they are plucked from circulation this time by a collector, the problem eliminated, who then stops the natural process.

Who says a coin's status must not change once it has been "collected"? IMO, what is more natural is allowing the condition to change, whether for better or worse. So for those of you who say this is wrong, look to your own collections and see how many of your coins are slabbed, housed in albums, flips or sitting in a drawer? What is more natural?

Theres a huge difference between a pocket and tumbler though. The whole idea from a profit standpoint would be to get it to get a non details grade. A tumbler likely doesn't solve that problem and cleaned usually gets better prices than damage it seems.

The profit aspect of it really is overblown though. In the most ideal situations you may end up recovering what a couple hundred maybe a grand or two with the grade loss to get it to look uncleaned. But its going to take you many many months/years. I dunno about you but I'm not walking around with coins worth thousands in my pocket or even several hundred. Then consider the amount of time it takes and the payoff isn't that great.

I tried to make a lowball ike and got about a month or two in it and was looking at it thinking are you kidding me this things barely changed. It takes a very patient individual and certainly more patience than I have to make lowballs or saved cleaned coins. If it was as easy as that there would be a lot less cleaned coins floating around

A pocket full of change is just a mini tumbler. Lol I mean really if you think about it.

I never knew I was supposed to carry my pocket piece in the same pocket as other coins to wear it down quicker.

I guess my pocket piece has lived a sheltered suburban private school life the last 2 years.

Maybe that is why it ran away 3 weeks ago and I can't find it.

I think this goes the same was as artificially toned vs intentionally toned.

If you throw your coin in a fry pan with olive oil or whatever to get a rainbow effect it is intentionally toned.

If you throw you coin in a cherry wood box *(tried it but didn't lokk good after 2 months) or on a wood ledge in direct sunlight (didn't work) a capsule with sulphur it is intentionally toned whether it looks it or not.

If you drop a coin under the seat of your car and it sits there for a year and the carpet interacts with the surfaces you did not intentionally tone the coin but a TPG may disagree.

I think the fault lies with the owner of the coin and the same applies to crack out artists who take details grade coins and play dumb upon resale.

Same thing in the watch collecting community.

Lots of doctored watches on ebay coming out of the Philippines and some accurately described as such but there some who buy them up and try to reflip them on ebay or elsewhere to the unsuspecting newbs as all original.