1897 Barber Quarter

Dipping is a hot-button topic to many folks in the hobby-industry.

Just this past year the PNG (Professional Numismatists Guild) passed a resolution or statement regarding coin doctoring. The definition that they used was written by a select group of numismatists headed up by John Albanese (JA). For those unaware, JA is also the founder of CAC and examines all the coins himself. The committee had about a dozen members, including me, and when all was said and done there were about five of us who had the most input on the definition. Andy Lustig, James Garcia (Scottsman Auctions), Mark Feld (Mark Feld Rare Coins), Rick Sear and myself (Tom Bush, aka Thomas Bush Numismatics) did a large amount of work. I was the one who ended up writing the draft for the PNG.

My personal belief is that dipping is doctoring and should generally be avoided. However, I also realize that dipping has been common in the hobby for over a century and that it is accepted by most in the field and is also accepted by the major certification or evaluation companies to various degrees and on various coins (NGC and PCGS as well as CAC). Therefore, we had the discussion on the committee very early on about what to do with dipping. The consensus was that the PNG, and the industry as a whole, would reject any definition of coin doctoring that specifically stated dipping was doctoring. This led us to write the definition in such a way as to accept the historical role of dipping and to acknowledge that proper dip candidates that are dipped correctly can become more liquid, can become more valuable and can become more attractive within the larger market.

Again, my personal opinion is that dipping is doctoring because in the vast majority of cases this is an elective procedure undertaken to change the outward appearance of a coin by stripping away the outer most layer of film, dirt and metal. However, I will not try to persuade others that they should view this topic as I view it and will not argue the point ad infinitum.

The link below is to the PNG page with the adopted resolution-

http://www.pngdealers.com/item.php?...ategory_id=2

I believe this was the second definition that we submitted to the PNG and in this second version there was a re-write of the first version.