100% Newbie Question - Detecting Cleaned Coins

I'm no expert on detecting cleaned coins either but from your pictures that coin looks fine to me.

Where did you get your bag of wheaties? ebay?

First impression: This one has been cleaned. I could be wrong, as I'm hardly an expert on Cents.

I'm leery of the shine it presents. That could be due to the type of lighting and your camera settings (nice pics, by the way), or it could be due to the coin being unoriginal. I would expect a nice Uncirculated 1939 Cent to retain shine, and yours certainly looks Uncirculated or very close, but that also makes it the type of coin someone would want to "restore" a shine to if it happened to be dark or dirty.

The horizontal striations on the reverse bother me, also. Although I've seen such lines on other issues, I don't recall ever seeing such prominent die polishing lines on Cents. If the lines extend onto the letters or devices anywhere, you can assume it's cleaned; if not, they're likely die polishing lines and were minted right into the coin.

Cleaning can be tough to determine if you're not familiar with that specific issue. Mechanical cleaning, something done with a tool or instrument, is relatively easy to spot. Polishing is a little more difficult, but still easy to catch if you've seen a few of that type of coin in Uncirculated condition. Chemical cleaning, done right, can be very difficult to detect for even an experienced hand. Your best weapon is experience. Except for coins which have been brushed or polished, it's very difficult to accurately photograph a cleaned coin so that the cleaning is obvious.

First of all, I have to say that I am learning this too and can not really tell you on how to look for "cleaned" coins (especially circulated coins), since there are many type/kind of cleaning - some are considered "restorative cleaning" (which is ok for many non-hardcore collectors - most dealer will do this), other type/kind of cleaning can damage the coin and devalue it. AND you need to train your eyes to know it - experiences count!

Regarding this coin: Based on your picture, this seemed like an uncirculated coin in full red. The obverse (face) side seemed original, only lacking some luster on the field in front of Lincoln face and a little bid behind Lincoln head. The reverse is a different story - the mint luster only remain in some places: the top left part of the U in United, between words, and the lower part of the right wheat stalk. Combine the lack of mint luster and those horizontal lines, the word "Cleaned" keep popping up. HOWEVER, it's still a good find - I will keep any and all pre 1940 cents in F/VF or better and XF or better for post 1940 wheat cents(clean or not) when searching through lot of wheat cents.

On a side note, if you ever decided to sell, maybe you can put them up here first before put on ebay......

Have fun searching. However, the best reward is the excitement and time sharing that you are having with your children. It's those things that money can't buy!

Happy Holiday.

Here is a link to an old thread which has quite a few pictures of cleaned coins

http://www.coincommunity.com/forum/...PIC_ID=13643


as for the cent pictured above ,,I think it has been cleaned ,, many times the lightling and angle of the photograph can hide the more obvious indicators ,, I would bet that with a little different lighting the hairlines would be much more visable than they are .

Metalman

I just went through some cents that my wife had in her change bowl. I pull it off her dresser every once in a while just to see whats there. I came across several cents that had similar lines on them. I'm no expert, but the lines didn't cross any of the letters or devices, leading me to believe they were die marks of some sort.

You might want to hang on to this coin until you can get an opinion from someone knowledgeable that can see the coin up close. If it turns out to be cleaned then you will have an idea of what to look for, with an example in hand you can use for comparison purposes.