1917 Standing Liberty Quarter--Thinking Of Grading It

Depends on how much of the toning occurred after the Sharpie was applied. In the case of magic marker, chances are it'd take something nasty enough to remove the toning as well to make it go away.

Casutherland, there's a reason why such a high percentage of the people around here say, "Never clean a coin." There are very, very few scenarios where any sort of cleaning is appropriate for a coin. Your SLQ is still a very nice-looking coin - I'm thinking AU50FH - and it obviously has great personal value to you, so even at full price it's worth more to you than a buyer.

Let's see what ANACS says. If it comes to it, there are ways to sort of "restore" its' original look....

Casu, I understand your feelings here. I get it totally trust me... I originally joined this forum as a result of my dad giving me a great deal of coins that I had no idea he even had. They turned out to be passed down from his father and such.

Prior to that I had never even thought or cared to collect coins ( other than LWC and LMC ) ... but once I held history in my hand, the various morgans, quarters and such, I was instantly bitten by the collecting fever.

I was lucky enough to learn by my dad, who unknown to me, had been collecting since he was 7 or 8, NEVER TO CLEAN COINS!

However, with that being said, I quickly became obsessed with the idea of sending EVERYTHING to TPG. I sent a few here and there, it is what it is... I know now, that I was just a super beginner, in search of validating history and as a very calculated person, I wanted exact confirmation.

I then realized, that the reason why I became instantly drawn to these coins was that, again they were family heirlooms, and historical treasures. What good or value would they have to me, if I couldn't touch them, move them, inspect them, if they were slabbed.

Moral is, TRUST the guys on here, they will grade it for free... VALUE your treasure by the meaning and not the grade, LEARN to never clean coins, SHARE your experiences with everyone!

By the way, beautiful coin!

I'm not going to lie mquinn.... Me too! Lol.

I actually often wonder, what do they miss and what do they pick up on..

If the monetary/numismatic value of the coin is more important to you than the sentimental value, then yeah it was a mistake. But we all make mistakes, and now you know.

On the other hand if this is a coin that has high sentimental value (and a coin you'd never sell) then who cares what some TPG says. Or us. If they say its been cleaned they're only telling the truth and giving you a professional response, which is what you paid them to do, remember? You didn't pay them to lie to you about it... and even if they don't notice it, its not changing reality. You just have to come to terms with it.

Also if it makes you feel any better, I know that PCGS considers some types of cleaning to be acceptable. Their main consideration is whether the coin's surface has been altered... so a dip that only removes the toning is considered fine. I dont know much about MS70 cleaner but if all you did was remove grime, that should in theory be OK. The problem is of course that its very very hard to not to more than that.

The coin came back as an AU-50 Grade. Which goes for about 170-200!!

That result was on the upper end of what I was expecting and they didn't place the coin with details! So obviously it didn't look to have been cleaned as many here said it would have been with MS70 cleaner.

I do completely respect the opinion of everyone here that said not to clean with MS70 though!

Ya don't worry lol, I learned my lesson. I am not going to clean coins any further..