Cleaned?

[Nutmeg Coin]

With Teletrade you can try to reach Gar Travis, a sharp grader and asset to the world of collectible coins and get his personal opinion which is usually quite unbiased and helpful.

[Kurtdog]

They didn't like the surface. It's a really drab, really lifeless surface. Still, that coin should trade reasonably-well, in spite of that, just on its technical strength. NGC just doesn't want its good name on it, when that happens. It starts doing that, on examples like this, it starts watering-down its reputation. In time, what does NGC mean? It means really drab, really lifeless coins.

 

No, they looked at this one, and they said, "This isn't up to the quality we wish to represent to collectors." Yes, they did. I overheard them in my crystal.

[Durham Collection]

Prior to posting a new thread I did a search to look for a topic similar to yours. I am relatively new to the coin collecting world but I just find myself constantly losing when sending in coins to NGC. My first submission was a beginners mistake. I bought a Trade Dollar at a shop while in Vegas while on vacation and it graded AU Details - Improperly Cleaned.

 

The next time, I sent in a a raw 1893 Morgan and got the same thing. At that point I made a promise to myself to only buy NGC slabbed coins (which I have). While trying to complete my Trade Dollar set I found this BEAUTIFUL 1876 S Trade Dollar graded AU58 by PCGS. I figured I simply can't go wrong. PCGS!!! Right?!? I knew about the cross over service and decided to give it a go. I spent $80 getting it sent into NGC,etc. It comes back as a no-cross over due to heavier wear or/ cleaning observed..I am now thinking to myself what is the magic formula here? Obviously I am not a coin expert and don't posses the fine eye of a dealer or a true numismatic expert thus why I pay money for these services. I am not opposed to NGC rejecting me time-after-time in the name of quality, but it can be frustrating.

 

The truth is...I LOVE NGC!!!....I picked them over PCGS holders on every coin I buy. I use their website. I advocate them, etc, etc. etc. At a minimum, keep my money and the high standards but I would advocate that the communication of why something graded or did not grade be more robust.

 

Good luck to you in your future coin submissions.

[MaximilianMike]

I know just what you mean. It is honestly smarter to buy them already slabbed but the hook with that is alot of dealers that I have encountered become very proud of them and do not budge on their slighlty skewed prices. Sometime the right coin is just there but you just have to make sure you are getting what you want. Trust me, I have received alot of honest advice recently about one of my seated dollars I bought. I sent it in just for the piec of mind in knowing it is genuine and nothing more. I know the feeling, it sucks investing money to find out someone cleaned it at some point. The only other advice I can offer is do not feel like you need to have a slabbed coin for it to retain its true value especially if you do not intend to part ways with them because as it was argued within this thread grading is very subjective.

[Phantom1701]

I feel over 99.9% of larger coins near 200 years old have been cleaned at some level at some time in their existence - so what do the TPGs do with them...

 

I tend to agree with this statement. It's just how harshly and are the original surfaces intact.

 

My favorite coin is an 1826 CBH in an NGC AU58 holder. Everyone I show it to swears it's been cleaned. And honestly, it probably has but still shows kick butt luster and the fields are nearly flawless. I don't lose sleep over it. Maybe it's been cleaned, maybe it hasn't, but every time I look at it I smile.

[johnny9434]

However, 1) grading is subjective and inconsistent and 2) I might have a very different opinion of the coin, were I to view it in hand. id have to go along with that as well. it makes perfect sense to me