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 Replies: 29 / Views: 6,488 |
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Valued Member
United States
398 Posts |
If it goes through the laundry it is "washed"!
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
5828 Posts |
I accidentally cleaned a coin in a washer... It was a nice looking F-12 ish 1917 type 1 slq and it got a nasty hit, not to mention a ton of hairlines.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
6370 Posts |
Quote:
I accidentally cleaned a coin in a washer... It was a nice looking F-12 ish 1917 type 1 slq and it got a nasty hit, not to mention a ton of hairlines.   Precisely why I check my pockets before I go to bed every night. |
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Valued Member
146 Posts |
3. Supposedly you can also tell if a coin has been cleaned by tilting it in the light looking for light reflection. I was told that non-cleaned coins will reflect more luster than those that have been cleaned. I COMPLETELY buy this explanation, but I guess my eye isn't trained enough to look at some older silver coins and use this method to tell if a coin's been cleaned. Actually not exactly. Tilting AND rotating it under strong light in a dark room is best while looking for parallel hairlines or the "halo effect" around the relief. A polished coin will reflect light better than a lightly buffed one, better than an ORIGINAL one, and better than an etched one. What the members are saying is LEARN what the light reflection from an original coin looks like. An experienced numismatist or TPG can tell 95+ percent of the time if a coin has been cleaned just looking at it during a coin show. Make a promise to yourself to get this way BEFORE you purchase any expensive (for you) raw coins. |
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Valued Member
146 Posts |
On some graded coins you see:
" Improperly Cleaned" but on a few you'll see "Cleaned"
So even cleaned coins have at least two different designations ....
Both examples are usually discounted in price and sometimes you'll find one with good eye appeal but usually those have been dipped in some sort of solution .....
Coins that has been mechanically cleaned or detail scraped - often called "Tooled" - should probably be avoided except in rare cases!
Dipper adds/clarifies IHO:
Improperly cleaned or Cleaned are used by TPGS. Unfortunately, THEY RARELY MAKE A DISTINCTION BETWEEN THE DEGREE OF IMPAIRMENT so we could all learn. Therefore, coins that are polished lightly, heavily buffed, obviously completely hairlined, etc. are just detailed as cleaned!
Tooling IS NOT in any way the same as cleaning. Tooling is considered adding details, smoothing out surface imperfections, etc. ONLY/ALWAYS
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Valued Member
146 Posts |
Australia offers excellent feedback.
I disagree with this: Good quality liquid metal polishes are not abrasive.
Check out what any POLISH does to a metal surface at 15X using a stereo scope!
Results do differ depending on the skills/techniques/polish of the user
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Valued Member
146 Posts |
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Valued Member
146 Posts |
You are talking about people who clean coins to deceive and get a higher price for them.
Don'[t leave out the conservation specialists who conserve objects! If their work is acceptable, the price will go up. If I "clean" a coin and it is either undetected or considered "market acceptable" then I can call myself a conservation specialist on that one coin...It's a keeper and I'm not selling or deceiving.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1189 Posts |
As a newer collector myself, I highly recommend buying PCGS/NGC certified for anything high value. For more common coins or bullion junk rolls I'll take a chance if the price is right and the coins look ok though. Be especially careful on ebay as sellers can take pics at different angles to hide the scratches left behind from cleaning. |
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Pillar of the Community
681 Posts |
You can't accurately describe the look of original luster using words. Go to a big coin show and look at a dealer's coins who mainly sells slabs then go to his neighbor who just sells raw coins. Study both and you'll learn more than anything you can read. Same exercise for circulated coins.
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Valued Member
United States
166 Posts |
I would like to add that I recently purchased a seated half that had been graded XF40 by PCGS. I submitted the coin to NGC for a crossover (coin was not removed from slab), and the coin was rejected as cleaned. Apparently, this is a coin where it is difficult to grade due to a chemical bath sometime in the past. PCGS specifically states that it does not recognize dipping as "cleaning", whereas NGC does not specifically refer to the subject (only in reference to copper surfaces).
What I learned from this expensive lesson is that one should stay away from such borderline coins. If a coin appears to have natural surfaces, and there is no evidence of a possible cleaning and/or fake retoning, then I will consider it.
At this point, I rely on the grading service to verify only that a coin is genuine, the rest is up to me to train myself if I am going to assemble a nice collection.
As an aside, kudos to these forums for the help that they provide. I posted pictures of the coin (before I purchased it) on the grading sub-forum, and was advised by some members to stay away from the coin, regardless of the PCGS 40 grade. I ignored the advice, as it is a very scarce date (1864), so I kidded myself that the grading services know better. I should have listened to my friends on here. In my heart I knew the coin didn't look right.
Finding coins with natural and pleasing surfaces is very time consuming and requires training, as most 19th century coins have been tampered with at some point in the past. Tuition is expensive, in or out of school.
If anyone has anything to add to this, I would welcome it.
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Bedrock of the Community
Australia
21788 Posts |
Some metal polishes do not require any rubbing of the coin at all. The coin is simply dropped in the silver cleaning solution, rinsed with distilled water, acetone, then dried.
Goddard's 'Silver Dip' is a good example of this class of silver cleaner. You simply drop the coin into the solution for a time of anything from a few seconds to a few hours. No rubbing whatsoever is required.
This solution was produced for the cleaning od sterling silver tableware, and is used professionally by those who sell new silver tableware.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1189 Posts |
Krusti-Koin that might be a blessing in disguise. While I believe PCGS and NGC are close on credibility, PCGS is usually better. Why did you want to swap it to a NGC slab?
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Valued Member
United States
166 Posts |
I wanted to change it to an NGC grade as I am building a civil war set of Seated halves and I already have three that are NGC graded. I normally would not even get involved in a crossover, but civil war dates (Philly) are tough to find, so I took a chance. It was a bad call on my part. I wanted to bring it up though, because the author of this thread raised a important issue that is difficult to address. It is easy to say "buy the coin not the holder", but it takes quite a bit of training and discipline to carry it out. These are the challenges that make the hobby fun for me. |
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Replies: 29 / Views: 6,488 |
First Page
Posted 01/01/2016 09:29 am
