most of these old coins have been enhanced or cleaned at some point in time, and back in the day I wonder if there ingredients were "MILD" as to keep the solid white color with out going to far as modern cleaners tend to vertually STRIP the luster right off the coin tinting into another color...in general, Most coins had some light toning if they were not taken care of and the cleaning will leave a sort of spotting residue one can see....other nice coins that have been over cleaned or dipped one time to many have erased the silver finish where the slight copper content bleeds through and some funny mild rust/like spotting can be seen.......as the cleaning continues,it looks fresh and clean for just a short period of time, where the luster will look very dull.....and begin to yellow at the extreme end....I was once at a show and this guy had his pile of "BU bin"where one could not help but notice in the dark corner he was located at, there was not much of a silver color....left on the coin......Melt value coins he wanted $35 a piece.....HEY what a great way to double your s"crap" value coins if you find the right idiot!!... one of the issues as you...and as I have...has been to wonder what is the original surface and what it looks like? I bought a "redfield" hoard coin...the look is tooo----it has to be seen in hand....straight from the bag into a holder.....I have yet to capture on film just what it looks like in hand or I would post a picture.....MOST ebay coins have been dipped, it's just how much, as in the past 100 years so many have "ENTICED' the appearance without killing the coin....This would be a great topic for NOT ONLY discussion, but for a learning experience we could all post examples of..Gene
FadeToBlack - I've tried taking pictures with smartphone, DSLR camera, and USB microscope without any success. They are all blurry and not too sharp. I'll see if I could take better pictures tomorrow.
Anyway, this was the bulk purchase from one of the bullion companies so I've paid around $33 per coin. I'm still going through the coins and determining whether any of them are cleaned, dipped, or polished. I see some with good cartwheel luster but there are others with subdued luster and/or heavy cruds around letters. So, definitely need to request refund or replacements.
Sounds like you got what you paid for. BU just generally means MS60-MS63. So as long as they don't have wear, you got what you paid for. Dipped doesn't mean they're not BU... I've dipped coins that have ended up in MS65 holders.
You dont lose lustre unless you severely over dip or mechanically clean the coins. At least not to a huge extent. A simple dip on a coin will not strip the lustre off of a coin. Without extreme chemical analysis, there is no way to tell if a high end coin with good lustre was ever dipped or not. It is all simple conjecture.
The same goes for the feel of the coin. The texture Trout is talking about happens when the coin has been over dipped.
I think you will have an extremely hard time (impossible) with requesting a refund or replacement from a bullion company with the claim that there silver has been dipped. Unless they specifically claim that they have undipped coins... and you can prove its dipped. I'm not sure I know of a single bullion dealer with a return policy. Even if dipped, they are nice coins and there is nothing wrong with that in my opinion.
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Posted 08/15/2013 9:16 pm
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