Just Bob

From "crud" to "critters" in four pages.

They probably thought it was a rare "Zombie Jefferson" variety.
It does favor Alice Cooper a little bit.

So it seems that one coin recruited three of its friends, and each of those recruited three of their friends, and so on. Nice!

"No more...Mr. Nice Numismatist!"

They probably thought it was a rare "Zombie Jefferson" variety.
It does favor Alice Cooper a little bit.

Maybe NGC had a "Slab Your Pocket Change For Free" event at the National Money Show.  LOL

Fortunately, we don't have anyone here who would be that ridiculous, especially since people bringing us junk coins they suppose to be rare errors always heed the collective PMD wisdom we offer.

Oh, wait.

You are right

I'm glad they finally got him. He was sued by PCGS in 2010 for selling fake coins in fake slabs, so I guess he started selling raw fakes after that. After selling counterfeits for over a decade, he should have gotten more than 30 months, in my opinion.

From "crud" to "critters" in four pages.

Copy/paste from a thread on the Numista forum (poster was pnightingale):
"The good news is that the more expensive the coin, the easier it is to restore it. Gold coins don't ever really get much of a patina to have to worry about destroying it, less so silver coins and copper / bronze are the most likely to suffer but generally the cheapest. If you have any doubts about your abilities then ask your local coin dealer if he would do the job for you, at least for the more valuable specimens.

It's also important to understand that there is always a risk any time you attempt something like this and the risk falls entirely on your shoulders, not on those giving free advice.

So having got all that out of the way, let's put together some kind of batting order starting with the least drastic. These steps can be applied to all the coins and you should know when to stop. Don't fall into the trap of being so pleased with the early results that you continue making improvements until the coin is ruined.

Water. Warm, not hot and a lot a patience. I like to soak my coins in warm full sun on the kitchen window although my wife doesn't think much of it. . It sounds like the glue was applied some time ago so if it's the older type made from animal by products (horse bones) there a good chance it might simply dissolve. Note that it dissolves, not disappears. It leaves the coins and turns the water into a glue soup which now covers the entire surface. Repeat the soaking with clean warm water and keep rinsing and repeating until it's so diluted as to be non existent.

Next step is to try a gentle soap. I prefer liquid hand soap because I don't believe that dish soap or washing up liquid is quite as benign as we might think. (Yeah Rick even mild green fairy liquid, imagine that sung in a cracked baritone. Happy dreams brother.) This is quite a minority opinion so I'll expand a little. All detergents contain some type of degreasing agent otherwise, well.... they wouldn't work! What you are trying to do is remove the glue without removing the patina. This patina is AKA toning and is caused by many factors including airborne impurities, UV light..... and oils from dirty lil' fingers. So.... I'm suspicious of using something with a grease removing element on something which is made more desirable by greasy, long dead fingers. So repeat step one with a bit of soap and warmth.

Next I'd be going straight to the alcohol or acetone. I don't have much experience of the former apart from habitually abusing it but plenty of folks claim it's harmless. The same claims are made for acetone but it has a nasty habit of sometimes turning old copper a nasty pink color. I've never seen it do any harm to other metals though. This is the point where I'd be inclined to call it a draw.

If everything else has failed then it's time to get a toothpick out and try to physically crack the glue away. Or in the case of silver coins you can dip them, removing the glue along with the natural tone. Either choice is far from perfect. Don't be tempted to scrub away at the coin with a brush of polishing tool, you will just ruin it.

Finally, if you have succeeded, take a moment to finish the job off properly by making sure the coin is completely dry and free from lingering residues before putting it in an album or flip, or you'll be right back where you started after a few months. If the coin now has a patchy tone where the glue used to be it will even out over time. You can however take steps to hasten the natural process by creating an ideal toning environment. This has been discussed at some length already so a forum search on toning coins will point you in the right direction."

Copy/paste from a thread on the Numista forum (poster was pnightingale):
"The good news is that the more expensive the coin, the easier it is to restore it. Gold coins don't ever really get much of a patina to have to worry about destroying it, less so silver coins and copper / bronze are the most likely to suffer but generally the cheapest. If you have any doubts about your abilities then ask your local coin dealer if he would do the job for you, at least for the more valuable specimens.

It's also important to understand that there is always a risk any time you attempt something like this and the risk falls entirely on your shoulders, not on those giving free advice.

So having got all that out of the way, let's put together some kind of batting order starting with the least drastic. These steps can be applied to all the coins and you should know when to stop. Don't fall into the trap of being so pleased with the early results that you continue making improvements until the coin is ruined.

Water. Warm, not hot and a lot a patience. I like to soak my coins in warm full sun on the kitchen window although my wife doesn't think much of it. . It sounds like the glue was applied some time ago so if it's the older type made from animal by products (horse bones) there a good chance it might simply dissolve. Note that it dissolves, not disappears. It leaves the coins and turns the water into a glue soup which now covers the entire surface. Repeat the soaking with clean warm water and keep rinsing and repeating until it's so diluted as to be non existent.

Next step is to try a gentle soap. I prefer liquid hand soap because I don't believe that dish soap or washing up liquid is quite as benign as we might think. (Yeah Rick even mild green fairy liquid, imagine that sung in a cracked baritone. Happy dreams brother.) This is quite a minority opinion so I'll expand a little. All detergents contain some type of degreasing agent otherwise, well.... they wouldn't work! What you are trying to do is remove the glue without removing the patina. This patina is AKA toning and is caused by many factors including airborne impurities, UV light..... and oils from dirty lil' fingers. So.... I'm suspicious of using something with a grease removing element on something which is made more desirable by greasy, long dead fingers. So repeat step one with a bit of soap and warmth.

Next I'd be going straight to the alcohol or acetone. I don't have much experience of the former apart from habitually abusing it but plenty of folks claim it's harmless. The same claims are made for acetone but it has a nasty habit of sometimes turning old copper a nasty pink color. I've never seen it do any harm to other metals though. This is the point where I'd be inclined to call it a draw.

If everything else has failed then it's time to get a toothpick out and try to physically crack the glue away. Or in the case of silver coins you can dip them, removing the glue along with the natural tone. Either choice is far from perfect. Don't be tempted to scrub away at the coin with a brush of polishing tool, you will just ruin it.

Finally, if you have succeeded, take a moment to finish the job off properly by making sure the coin is completely dry and free from lingering residues before putting it in an album or flip, or you'll be right back where you started after a few months. If the coin now has a patchy tone where the glue used to be it will even out over time. You can however take steps to hasten the natural process by creating an ideal toning environment. This has been discussed at some length already so a forum search on toning coins will point you in the right direction."

Nothing wrong with a nice toaster   Nice Toaster

I'm not sure you should let yourself be topless in the picture like that, Karen, though it's absolutely none of my business to suggest how you should do anything in your own house.

Yep, you are definitely from below the Mason-Dixon line.

If we were playing "Guess the Grade," I would vote MS65, so I am going to agree with the above posters and say "no" on sending it in to be graded.

Coin is invisible. Doubt that this happened at the mint.

If you save enough of them, you can get a toaster.
 
 
 
 
 
 
j/k

You don't show the reverse so we don't know what the mint mark is but even the lowest mintage "S" MM had 13,560,00 with the Philadelphia Mint  producing 161,116,000 so they are not rare but still a keeper.
Lahi-
Please always show both sides of the coin when posting pictures. In this case it would have enabled us to see the MM. I know you are a newbie so this is not criticism, it's just the more information you give us, the better we can help so keep asking questions. We are here to help.

Thank you for the kind words, but I absolutely DO NOT want compensation of any kind for the posts that I put on here. I appreciate the thought, but, again, please don't.
As for your '73-S Ike dollar: those are some really clean surfaces, judging by the pictures. That is not something that you usually see on these coins. If it was a Denver or Philadelphia issue, I would say it might be worth a shot at trying for a grade of MS67, but the S mints are common enough in that grade that it wouldn't be worth the money, IMO.

Thank you for the kind words, but I absolutely DO NOT want compensation of any kind for the posts that I put on here. I appreciate the thought, but, again, please don't.
As for your '73-S Ike dollar: those are some really clean surfaces, judging by the pictures. That is not something that you usually see on these coins. If it was a Denver or Philadelphia issue, I would say it might be worth a shot at trying for a grade of MS67, but the S mints are common enough in that grade that it wouldn't be worth the money, IMO.

Even if they aren't worth anything, you learn more about coins and can better discern valuable errors from routine flubs, so it's worth your time.

Actually, I am glad you made that mistake. That link you posted was to one of the websites that I had bookmarked on my old computer, but forgot to add when I got this current laptop. Thanks for reminding me about it.

Kind of hard to tell if they are damaged from that distance, but that is definitely discoloration from the environment - not an error.

Welcome to the forum.
Mohawk is right. People who collect for Registry points, or to have something before the rest of the community does, do not mind paying extra for their coins. And, there is nothing wrong with that approach, so if that is what you like, then go for it. Just don't expect those prices to remain high once the market becomes saturated and/or the newness wears off.