Question About Cleaning Coins

No it didnt add luster it just took off the black and and made the orignal luster easier to see
Here is a before, I'll get an after shot tomorrow for everyone. Also this coin will never be graded! I just couldnt stand looking at the spots anymore :)

And its ok Yokozuna, flame on if you must hehe

It's your coin, and you did due diligence before making a decision. Not to mention, it's too late to change your mind anyway.

Take it out under direct sunlight, and angle it a few different ways under a loupe. You'll see what you did to it, even if a photograph won't.

I'm not offended at all Yokozuna. But thank you for thinkin about my feelings hehe.. I know cleaning is a no no thats why I was surprised to not see any damage, thats why I posted. I'll get some good photos up tomorrow. The surface still has that BU "look" not sure what to call it... and for being "cleaned" she still does "cartwheels" :) Ok time for bed, photos in the morning!

There are many folks in the numismatic arena who do not know what "luster" is. Time to enlighten.

Luster is ... the undisturbed result of striking a coin under immense pressure. As metal flows between the dies the surface tends to "frost". In proof-like coins, due to the newness of the dies the frosting occurs mainly on the devices and the fields take on a mirror appearance. As the dies age the mirror fields begin to frost. Any friction on the frost after the minting process removes it forever (wear or cleaning). The test for luster is rotating the coin at angled lighting and observing the "cartwheel" effect. If the luster is gone or inhibited the reflection will not cartwheel. In previous threads we have discussed "dipping". Repeated dipping removes the frost that is luster ... it's a very thin layer.

Luster isn't ... a shiny surface.

Have a wander through this thread. Some of the work rmpsrpms is doing is of a resolution sufficient to show the "roughness" of surface responsible for cartwheel; my own experience tells me that dipping causes a noticeable degredation of this "roughness." Of course, this kind of resolution makes it impossible to view the whole surface of the coin at once, but the necessary detail is there.

Ok here is an after shot of that coin.. I tried to get it to show the luster. You can see it the best on the right and left of the photo, and spins all around when in the light. All around I am impressed, and didnt think it would have come out this good. And it still looks 10 times better than a few other coins I have that must have been dipped in something much stronger than the baking soda.





I know its hard to compare photos, but with my eye I cant see any damage caused by my cleaning.
So the next question, what kind of magnification do TPG's use? I'll see if I can get a closer look.

And once again this is not something I would do to every coin in my collection, Just this one with those nasty black spots.

So questions? comments? hate mail time?

One more thing. I do see a little haze around the leaves on it, but I looked at some photos I had taken a few weeks ago and I see it those too. So that wasnt me

Here are some photos I took for a thread of mine on another forum. Maybe they would help

Here are 2 morgans, one on left is more lustrous than one on right



This is magnification of 100X using my microscope with LED light cloase at angle to get surface.



Notice the flow line peaks that give the cartwheel effect. After wear or repeated dipping, or strength of strike, dies newness, etc, these peaks wear easily and the cartwheel effect will become less and if there are no peaks, disappear.

Below is the same at 400X



And a final close up at 400X on the more lustrous one. Scratching or abrasives reduce the natural cartwheel effect and may leave it "shiny" but not the same as lustre.





Jim