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 Replies: 19 / Views: 3,073 |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1215 Posts |
Hey, I was just pondering this question about the cleaning of classic coins. I realize that a lot of cleaned coins currently on the market were cleaned in the 60s and 70s when numismatics blew up while people didn't have as much knowledge about the care of coins.
However, I also know that almost all circulated seated and bust coins were cleaned at one point in their lives. Furthermore, a lot of the cleanings were old cleanings; ie. the coins mostly retoned and had more wear after the advent.
Thus, my question is: why did people clean classic coins and who cleaned them? The average plebian using the coins or the collector?
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Rest in Peace
United States
18456 Posts |
Yes your right .Many of These classic coins were cleaned not by non collectors but by old time collectors themselves . It's a shame but like you said they were cleaned long ago ,so after all those years toning has come back on some of these coins and don't look all that bad.  |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4469 Posts |
I confess that I cleaned my silver coins in the 60's that I found in circulation. My reason for cleaning was to make the silver coin shin like new. I used a silver cleaner that did a good job of making the coin shinny. I liked the coin better after it was cleaned. My entire coin collection was stolen in the early 80's, and my only consolation is the thief got a bunch of cleaned coins, but the thief most likely did not care because silver was around $40 dollars an ounce.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1119 Posts |
cleaning coins used to be an acceptable practice
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
11951 Posts |
Everyonce in a while I read a old article on cleaning coins.
I think coins have been cleaned ... for as long as there have been coins
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4809 Posts |
As has been noted, it was a common practice in the past to clean coins that would be on display in the owners home. I've seen several old coin displays (like modern day folders/albums) with classic, cleaned coins come through the LCS.
One of those cards had a 1909 S VDB (and several other older cents) that had been cleaned. At some point, they put a piece of tape across it to keep it from falling out of the holder. The reverse looked good...the obverse not so much.
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
20753 Posts |
Yes it was the thing to do some time in the past. I remember as a kid when I would show my Folder of pennies to someone, first thing they would say is you should clean them. Then they would look so much nicer. It is always something to think about. If you don't clean your car, bike, boat, etc. it looks like junk and people will say that too. If you clean your dining room all wood furniture, Sure looks great and now worth a lot more than if dirty. However, if you did the same thing to a 200 year old table, you now loose a massive amount of money. You buy an old Oil painting and want to clean it. Your told if you do, you'll loose most of it's value. If your house is dirty, it's worth less. You keep your cloths clean but no one cleans those old Mummies in the Museum. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1656 Posts |
My first coin dealer was Mr. Kent at Kent's Dry Cleaners in Kennebunk, Maine. Every time we kids would bring him an old coin he'd lick his thumb and wipe the coin before looking at it with his loop. Anyway... how many old circulated coins have you seen with finger prints? I mean, really? 150 year old VGs with lots of wear and no prints? All old coins were cleaned at some point.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
968 Posts |
I've got several coins from the early 1900s that I got from my mom, who got them back in the 1960s or 1970s from the bank for opening an account. They used to give people gifts for opening accounts back then. They were in a rectangular hard case holder with every denomination between a cent and a half dollar. All of them were cleaned to be nice and shiny. When I first started out in numismatics I thought they were a higher grade because they looked so nice. Only after starting to gain some real knowledge did I realized they were dipped, wiped, and even whizzed to look like that.
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
12057 Posts |
My Wheat cent collection as a kid was stored in blue Whitman albums, obverses polished monthly with Wright's copper cream (when I got done with the pan bottoms for Mom), and when they got loose in the hole or the back of the hole got punched through, a length of Scotch tape did the trick. I still have the albums, and most of the coins, although they're in a bit better storage now. I had pretty much an entire date and MM run except for the usual ones us kids could neither afford nor find in Dad's pocket change (1909 S and SVDB, 1914-D, 1922 no D, 1931-S) Had the 10-S, 11-S, etc. all nice and shiny and polished just like those pan bottoms! Member ANA - EAC - TNA - SSDC - CCT #890 "Most of the things worth doing in the world had been declared impossible before they were done." -- Louis D. Brandeis |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1188 Posts |
I know it would be tough to estimate, but it'd be interesting to find out the % of US junk silver that has been cleaned or melted.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
790 Posts |
I can't answer for all coins, but I'm discovering that my grandpa's collection was mostly cleaned. I initially assumed it must have been other people, that he knew better, but the fact is, the way he obtained most of his collection was by going through the till every night after a day's business in the service station he owned. He started running it not long after the depression, and he kept coins that interested him. I now suspect that after those coins were handled by staff with grease all over their hands, he probably cleaned them himself. He did love to use kerosene (and sometimes Borax!) to get rid of grease.
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
17884 Posts |
Why? To make them clean and shiny of course. No one wanted to look at dirty copper or tarnished silver. It was accepted practice. Even museums like the Smithsonian did it. Many of the early silver proofs that came from the Mint collection were polished to remove tarnish on them. Even some of the old "penny boards" recommended that you shine up the coins with an eraser before putting them in the board. And non-collectors cleaned them too, especially fine hotels. Many of them had a special crew whose job it was to clean all the coins that came into, or were used in the establishment. they would use modified commercial washing machines and dryers and sometimes use steel shot to polish up the coins during the cleaning. The Westin St Francis Hotel in San Francisco was still doing so as late as Dec 2013. (They may still be doing so.) Here is an article about it. http://audio.californiareport.org/archive/R201311291630/ Edited by Conder101
09/29/2016 2:24 pm
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4416 Posts |
Quote:
cleaning coins used to be an acceptable practice IMHO, it is still acceptable for a variety of reasons; primarily, for conservation. NGC has made a business of it. Astute collectors of early coppers have made a science of it. The line between cleaning and conservation is a thin one at times. Then too, many early coins have, at some time, been in contact with PVC that an acetone dip will help. In my own case, I'll admit to often cleaning/conserving counterstamped coins when initially acquired. Oftentimes, there is debris that is best removed from a recessed stamp. Otherwise, it will eventually blur the mark; this, as I've observed on some ED'd pieces, already in my collection. In ye olde days, some collectors coated their early coppers with lacquer as a form of preservation. I once had a 1799 cent that was darkly lacquered! What a difference a professional cleaning made in that piece. |
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
94367 Posts |
I think it's a natural human tendency to want to make something look better. The temptation is just too great.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4212 Posts |
I remember using a product called Met-All on entire Washington sets for my dad, who sold them
to airman on Plattsburg, Minot, Whiteman & Vandenburg AF bases. After the pink goo was used, 2nd & last step was creme of tartar, a fine powder. Part of it was just the military culture, where everything on base was 'spic n span' & ready for inspection. He'd buy the few keys & had rolls of all others in the series.
Assembling a set was different, when an entire bag was silver @ face.
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Replies: 19 / Views: 3,073 |
Posted 09/27/2016 8:41 pm
