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Whizzed Coin?
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20 posts in this topic

Thanks, I was seeing contact marks all over the coin and an un-natural shiny appearance, so I wasn't sure if it was a poor attempt at whizzing the coin.

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On 9/11/2022 at 7:34 AM, EagleRJO said:

Thanks, I was seeing contact marks all over the coin and an un-natural shiny appearance, so I wasn't sure if it was a poor attempt at whizzing the coin.

You were quite correct to be suspicious of the shine. The coin didn't naturally get that way in circulation. If you take a magnified look at the surfaces, look for either circular/arcing scratches or straight scratches--many little tiny ones. Whizzing is simply a type of abrasive cleaning and it pretty much cannot help but leave zillions of little scratches that a loupe will reveal. A microscope will show them like neon signs.

The contact marks probably have nothing to do with the bad cleaning and polishing. If you think about it, how would that process inflict those? I don't see a way. Imagine yourself with a Dremel tool whizzing the coin; could that tool produce those dings? No, but a cash register could. A cowboy's pocket could. And so on.

While we don't grade with magnification below 69, it's outstanding for diagnosing cleaning and alteration. Error hunters and cherrypickers in particular just got to have it. The downside is that magnification can be depressing, as in here is this coin that looks beautiful to my naked eye, and under here it looks like it was in a little elf parking lot. But seeing is an occupational hazard of looking, and in numismatics looking is the thing.

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Thanks. The pic gets blurry when you try to zoom in, but it looked like somebody went at it with a wire brush and then polished it to try and hide that.  I guess that would just be a harsh cleaning and polishing.

Edited by EagleRJO
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On 9/11/2022 at 10:38 AM, EagleRJO said:

Thanks. The pic gets blurry when you try to zoom in, but it looked like somebody went at it with a wire brush and then polished it to try and hide that.  I guess that would just be a harsh cleaning and polishing.

A wire brush would have left hundreds of tiny grooves visible under magnification. Polishing it might have made them fade in raised areas but the evidence would probably still show in protected areas. A wire brush probably did not cause the many little dings because that's not how it works. The bottom line is that magnification is essential. Right now all we know is that it is a lightly worn circulated Morgan, polished hideously.

My theory of the crime, so to speak, is that someone with the numismatic intellect of a bivalve saw that it was lightly worn and probably very dark, and made the infantile decision that pretty bright shiny would pass for uncirculated and in any case that no one would ever want it unless it was happy pretty shiny, so they polished it in some way. We get it all the time here: "What is the best way for me to clean my coin so that it can be pretty shiny beautiful?" (Most of the time they can't even spell "shiny" and we end up with a term that invokes climbing up trees or Canadian keep-away.) And we try to tell them not to (as you have by now seen more than once), and they generally come back with an equivalent of "Yeah, sure, nudge nudge, wink wink," thereafter probably going ahead to mutilate the coin anyway because that was already the plan and they brought their confirmation bias mixtape with them.

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On 9/11/2022 at 2:59 PM, EagleRJO said:

In addition to the unusual appearance I thought it was strange to have that many surface marks for a coin with not much wear.

That depends on the type of marks, but all right. In that case one asks: what is one's theory of the crime? In other words, how does one infer that the marks came to be? What do they look like under heavy magnification? There is no whizzing scenario that would have potential to create such marks. A much closer look at them could give an answer; for example, perhaps it has dings that look like little castle wall crenelations. Those are typical of edge dings, bag marks often found on fully uncirculated and original Morgans when the edge of one coin smacks into the surface of another. They are so common that the ANA grading guide for Morgans is very specific about the quantity, location, and prominence of contact marks at each MS gradation.

I keep after this because it is such an important principle: how does one believe this could have happened? You've already seen how many people we get posting parking lot coins and hoping they are Rare Mint Errors. Not one in twenty has learned enough about the minting process to ask him or herself how the mint could possibly have caused the situation on display; they just figure that if the coin is f-bombed up that way, the mint must have done it. That of course is a lot like looking at a totaled Camry and asking how the Toyota factory screwed the car up so badly. Thus with this coin. We look closely enough at it to develop a theory of how the marks could credibly have happened.

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On 9/11/2022 at 9:06 PM, JKK said:

You've already seen how many people we get posting parking lot coins and hoping they are Rare Mint Errors ... That of course is a lot like looking at a totaled Camry and asking how the Toyota factory screwed the car up so badly.

I have noticed the number of people that post parking lot coins thinking it's some kind of mint error. To the point where I actually started a Road Rashed Parking Lot Coin Set to have some fun with that called "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" with 3 coins of each denomination that I actually find in parking lots discussed in a thread I started. And I will probably borrow your line about mint errors at some point. :grin: 

I agree there is no way all the marks on the coin occurred at the mint or is a mint error of any kind, and they were nothing like I have ever seen on slabbed or example grade Morgans which set off red flags in addition to the off appearance.

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On 9/11/2022 at 9:06 PM, JKK said:

... what is one's theory of the crime? In other words, how does one infer that the marks came to be?

That was the question I was trying to figure out.  I have the ANA standards and I'm familiar with the table for MS Morgans that actually has a heading in the table for "Contact Marks", which I thought was unusual at first, but it makes sense.  Morgans are large heavy coins mass produced for circulation which were not gently handled that commonly have marks from roughly handled blanks as well as multiple edge dings and bag marks from being dropped in bins after being struck and then tossed in large mint bags after being counted, and then the bags are roughly tossed around causing more of the common marks I am used to seeing on Morgans.

I do see many of the classic dings and contact marks on the coin, but there were many other smaller marks or scrapes all over both sides of the coin which left me scratching my head as it's not like anything I have seen before.  It wasn't like just multiple contact and rub marks from circulation with the limited amount of wear on the coin, or the classic scrape marks from cleaning I often see, like that are prominently all over the junk coin JP posted.  I still can't get over the number of deep cleaning scrape marks on that one, and you are left wondering what kind of rocket scientist decided to do that. (shrug)

It did look a little like one coin I saw in an NGC holder labeled whizzed attached, except for the device on the obverse which has longer more sweeping marks, which is why I asked about a possible poor attempt to do that ... or maybe a better version of that which hid those types of lines.  But I guess it's possible the surface is just a result of circulation damage made worse by someone trying to "fix" the appearance that I just haven't seen before.

1893-S Morgan Wizzed Coin.jpg

Edited by EagleRJO
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On 9/11/2022 at 7:21 PM, EagleRJO said:

Harshly cleaned from the reject jar?

Btw, nice touch with the cotton glove for your junk coin. :grin:

Yes that is one I got in the junk jar. It is a 21 D with a lot of detail but had that gray haze all over it. Once I got it home and under the microscope I could see all the fine lines. So that is the one I use for the grand kids to handle and they love it. It was also my lesson coin. Now that I am older never buy anything without your loupe.:facepalm:

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On 9/12/2022 at 10:04 AM, Oldhoopster said:

Compare them to your polished coin and you should start being able to tell the difference.

It doesn't look like most including the one you just posted, and then there are ones like the reverse and most of the obverse (except the face) of the NGC identified one posted above (attached is the slab) that don't have the obvious swirls, built up metal at high points or the appearance, but do have a lot of smaller marks all over which is why I decided to be cautious and post it.

1893-S Morgan Wizzed Slab.jpg

Edited by EagleRJO
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On 9/12/2022 at 10:46 AM, Oldhoopster said:

I wouldn't get too hung up on whizzed vs polished vs harshly cleaned vs heavily dipped.  They key is recognizing that they are not natural (which you seem to be picking up well as a newer collector).  

 

The difference between whizzed and polished can be as small as which bit/attachment was attached to the Dremel. 

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I still want to further my knowledge about issue like this to both: (1) continue to learn and become a better collector; and (2) help in assessing where I may be considering say a cleaned raw coin at a significantly reduced price and really want to stay away from whizzed coins.  It is really invaluable to have more experienced collectors to bounce things off, and I really appreciate the assistance.

Edited by EagleRJO
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