1905 Liberty Head Nickel For Discussion

VF, think it grades straight but not particularly attractive surfaces.

The price of grading it. That's what I usually look at.

i think thats a tough question to answer. from what I've seen rarer coins sometimes get passes especially if the cleaning appears to be aged and retoned over time. coins that are overdipped or the original skin is gone and the coin looks dull may not pass. coins that appear to have hairlines crossing devices will not pass. other than that I have no idea how the TPG's handle it when its borderline. I think its similar to strike. from my standpoint a coin should be graded based on how it left the mint and although strike is a component either plus or minus, it should not be enough to lower grades significantly. we see this a lot on early half dollars where it appears grade is sometimes knocked 2 full grades when its apparent that that most of the wear is actually strike related making this series very difficult to call what a TPG would say about it.

Cleaning is cleaning. Just like anything else in numismatic grading, its effect on a coin's grade is subjective. I agree with Panzaldi and IGE.

I've seen terribly cleaned coins in straight grade holders and coins that look virtually untouched come back in body bags. Anyone who's been collecting TPG coins for more than a few years has probably got plenty of examples of each - I have an 1802 Large Cent and 1938 Walking Liberty half dollar and a prooflike 1878-S Morgan that I would have bet money were original coins, but all came back improperly cleaned from NGC or PCGS, but I've also sent a few Morgans in that I expected to come back as probably cleaned (1880-O, 1889-O, 1894-S) that came back straight grade!

For me, being more into early copper, cleaning is less of an issue because we net grade in EAC. Cleaning can be very light - a quick wipe last week or a hundred years ago - or it can be harsher: dips, retoning agents (e.g. Deller's cream), spot removal, wire brush/wire wheel, abrasive cleaners like copper polish, etc. Not all cleaned coins are ugly, undesirable, or unloved -- if the cleaning doesn't ruin the coin's appearance, such as whizzing or dipping, it might even be hard to detect without knowing what to look for.

I am not an expert on most coin series - my two main focus areas for US coinage are early copper and Morgan dollars - so I still struggle a lot with determining things like environmental damage/cleaning/tooling vs. strike or die issues on series like Bust half dollars, Buffalo nickels, Indian/Wheat cents, etc. This lack of expertise on my behalf is why I seek out and will pay premiums for TPG coins that have original-appearing surfaces, such as "crusty" CBQ's and CBH's.

One thing I have gotten pretty decent at, although far from expert, is detecting dipped silver Morgans and Peace dollars, just by virtue of handling hundreds of them over the past few years, in grades from Fair to MS65, and also dipping quite a few "junk silver" examples myself in various solutions of dip, dip + water, etc. for various lengths of times to see how it affects coins. I've tried this on coins that were almost completely black with end stage toning and on common coins that were AU-Uncirculated but had other issues (major gouges, holes, so on) just so I can see what the end result is. This gives me a nice sort of "reference photo" set to compare to for Morgan and Peace dollars.

I have this as a high VF straight. I don't see the evidence of cleaning. The ding isn't enough to detail it IMO.

Looking at photograde I agree with VF35. I wouldn't base a cleaning judgment on toning or gunk around the stars, because this is where it naturally occurs anyway. PCGS specifically states that dipping is not considered cleaning, so where they draw the line on "overdipped" seems entirely subjective, as is the call on whether this rim ding gets a pass or is considered damage. Borderline dings seem to go either way depending on the grader. Just my observations.

from what I've seen lower circulated coins seem to get more of a pass being dipped than like XF and above. its fairly wasy to see if a coin was over dipped. all the original surfaces are gone and whats left is just a flat lifeless coin. there is a line in the sand where it crosses over to details but I'm not sure what the line is and everyone here has opinions on where that is. all I know is after looking at thousands of dipped coins the over dipped ones stand out like a sore thumb.