Books On How To Spot Cleaning

I would agree that experience is the key, but no matter how experienced, there are some bound to get by. As I am sure is the case with most, it is the dipped ones that are hard to tell.

The way I have learned is somebody I deal with on a regular basis goes by the "rip em, dip em, ship em". I have seen about every sort of coin cleaning method known and I know what to look for, but the hardest to detect is a simple dip on MS silver coins.

But I know of no book that help picking out cleaned coins.

In fact, I just got partially burned on a large seated deal.
They were all toned nicely, some rainbow and did not give much of a thought about being cleaned. Once I got them back home and looked under higher power, about 90 of the 100 Seated dimes, quarters, and halves (all F-XF) all had hairlines under the toning. It was something that happened a long time ago, and retoned. Very hard to tell when they appear to have original color.

Thanks a bunch, Phoenix.

I just ordered that book. I'll take a look at it and see if this would be helpful to my friend. I sent the link to this thread to him also, so he will see the responses for himself.

Susan, I realize I'm not answering the precise question asked, but...there is absolutely no substitute for having a knowledgeable dealer or collector show you HOW to properly examine coins under good light and to review/discuss them together. I will go a step further and note that the more coins that can be viewed, the better and suggest viewing a major auction (or two or three or more), if possible. It's free, allows for a large number and variety of coins to be viewed and can be a wonderful learning experience.

Please feel free to forward images of coins that you want to know if they have been cleaned or not. Often, if a coin(edited for typo)has been lightly dipped it is impossible to know. Other times, clues can be seen, such as faint remnants of toning, splotches, re-toning effect, etc. I understand that, depending upon where one lives and whom he knows, it's not always practical to find a mentor and look at a large auction.

Once a coin has been cleaned beyond a dipping and shows obvious evidence of that cleaning, it usually loses a good portion(though not all)of the value it had.