Cleaning your coins (NO) 1 1

[Marc Bateman]

Hello everyone, hope all is good. Ok I'm a part of several coin and money groups on social media. But before that I know it is totally wrong for you to clean your coins. Ok this question gets brought up at least 20 xs a week, " how do I clean my coins" and then you get to read all the good, crazy, WTF answer's. Any stories or advice that you can share and then i can use? Alot of people think it's just a scam from grading company's to make you use there service. Once again thank you so much. And remember smiling is contagious, so don't forget to SMILE...

[Mike Meenderink]

You should not clean coins. Unless.....you have the proper knowledge and experience to do so without harming the original surfaces of the coin. Cleaning a coin improperly can reduce its market value by various percentages based on the coin in question. Conservation of a coin or "cleaning" done by a professional or other expert with the proper knowledge and practices would still give the coin a chance to be graded if no other issues are present on the coin after conservation. It is when coins have been improperly cleaned which leaves marks or residues among other telltale signs of amateur cleaning attempts that the coin is now impaired and devalued amongst serious collectors.

[Sandon]

   New collectors and the general public need to understand that nowadays serious collectors prize coins that have original surfaces and avoid those whose surfaces have been damaged by "cleaning". Those who think they should "shine up" their coins are likely destroying much of whatever market value the coins would otherwise have had. I'll repeat what I wrote recently on another thread on the same subject:

   The term "cleaning" is itself a misnomer because a process that solely removes surface dirt from a coin without affecting the surface of the coin--literal cleaning, such as by using a solvent such as acetone--is not included in this term.  Instead, "cleaning" in its negative numismatic context means a variety of chemical and abrasive processes that chemically or physically alter the surface of the coin itself, resulting in an unnatural or unattractive appearance. This includes a number of different appearances, such as the following:

   1.  Heavy hairlining from abrasive processes such as by scrubbing the coin even with a cloth or rubbing it with a pencil eraser or the like. To the naked eye, this includes an unnatural "whiteness" that appears at different angles as the coin is rotated in the light and an unnatural, unattractive grey color in the abraded areas that is unlike the natural, darker or brownish greys of unimpaired circulated or toned coins.

  2.  Blotchiness or unnatural brightness, shininess, or dullness from various types of chemical treatments or polishes. To compound the ambiguity, grading services do not treat silver coins that have been carefully "dipped" in anti-tarnish solutions as "cleaned", although such "dipping" may reduce the numerical grade they award the coin.  However, coins that have a "washed out" appearance due to being dipped too many times or for too long will likely be deemed to have been "cleaned". (Dipping is unacceptable for copper and apparently copper-nickel coins and will almost certainly result in a "details" grade as "cleaned" or "recolored".)

   "Cleaned" coins vary in appearance from hideous to fairly attractive depending on the nature and severity of the "cleaning". In my opinion, the more attractive ones are collectible at an appropriate discount. Additionally, even experienced collectors and dealers may disagree over whether a particular coin should be described as "cleaned" and, if so, the severity of the "cleaning".

   I have a "Custom Set" on the NGC Registry that includes only coins that NGC or PCGS "details" graded as "cleaned" and a few that were numerically graded but that I regard as "cleaned". Characteristics of "Cleaned" Coins - Custom Set (collectors-society.com) Hopefully, the photos and descriptions in this set will provide you with some guidance. However, you will need to examine a number of original and "cleaned" coins in person to really understand the differences.

For NGC's explanations, see the following:

NCS Conservation: Effects of Improper Cleaning | NGC (ngccoin.com)

NGC Details Grading | NGC (ngccoin.com)

[JKK]

The thing is to get through to why they imagine they should clean them. Two customary assumptions:

1. The more "shinny" the coin, the more valuable it is.
2. No one will ever catch them at it. (You can almost see the little smirks on their faces as they dismiss the reflex answers. "Yeah," they think, "but their just a bunch of grumpy boomers who are'nt so smart.")

The truth:

1. In the first place, anyone too dumb to spell "shiny" is too dumb to collect coins. Makes me gag. But in fact, this whole perception is false. There are natural looks and unnatural looks, and cleaning (especially during amateur hour, when some imbecile goes to work with Brasso or a wire brush) makes nearly all coins look unnatural. A worn coin is not supposed to look shiny. Shiny is not automatically good. Natural is good. Damaged is bad. Amateur cleaners damage.
2. In the second, the only people who can do it without us catching it know who they are, and they aren't novices. There aren't a great many. There's one in our club. Anyone who has to ask anything on any coin board about it is almost surely not one of those experts. Just asking the question is interpreted as: "Hi. I'm not only a fool, but I have no idea how great a fool I am."

We use magnification, scrutiny, and experience to catch the cleaned coins. We know more about it than novices. Some of us use powerful coin microscopes and we can see abrasive cleaning scratches like they were furrows in a plowed field. Doesn't mean we're special, just that we've been at it a while and invested time and money. Those of us who have learned some whens and whys have typically paid tuition for that. Did I succeed in blowing the bronze disease off an ancient copper that looked like it was covered in smurf snot? Yeah. But I only did that because the coin was literally deteriorating and needed rescue.

You'll only penetrate their skulls by refuting the underlying reasoning. And even then, only sometimes.

[VKurtB]

On 12/15/2023 at 5:00 PM, Marc Bateman said:

Alot of people think it's just a scam from grading company's to make you use there service.

“You know, m-o-r-o-n-s.”

[powermad5000]

The simple answer to this is DO NOT CLEAN COINS! Period.

Other than a rinse with warm water and a light squeeze (not rub) with a microfiber cloth to remove the water droplets will mostly end up as damage to the original surface of the coin. There are some who are knowledgeable that use acetone, but once again without knowing how to properly perform such a procedure will once again result in damage to the surface of the coin.

Once the surface is damaged through improper, amateur, and incorrect methods to attempt to alter the surface of a coin to make its appearance better, the damage CANNOT be reversed and that coin will have permanent damage to the surface significantly lowering its collectability, especially to serious or high end collectors, and even those collectors who seek coins with original surfaces. Cleaned coins will lose half to sometimes two thirds of their value.

Should a coin need "help" due to a surface issue (such as PVC contamination), a professional company named NCS (Numismatic Conservation Services) can perform such a service safely without damaging the original surface of the coin which is known as conservation and is used to eliminate some surface issues and stabilize the surface of the coin to help prevent further damage. Their methods are proprietary and are unknown outside of the company. Even this service will not conserve all coins, and conservation cannot reverse past cleanings or past damage. For example, once a coin has developed corrosion, it can be stabilized but it cannot be reversed.

For a final note on this subject, there is NO YouTube video that demonstrates the way to clean a coin. Any video of any process on social media purporting how to clean a coin is only showing a video on the quickest way to permanently damage a coin.

 

 

[USAuPzlBxBob]

If you have a gold coin that is currently graded & slabbed by NGC and you send it to NCS for conservation, they deem the coin worthy of their conservation methods, is there any chance that the coin might come back with a lower grade than it had before?

[powermad5000]

On 12/17/2023 at 2:16 PM, USAuPzlBxBob said:

f you have a gold coin that is currently graded & slabbed by NGC and you send it to NCS for conservation, they deem the coin worthy of their conservation methods, is there any chance that the coin might come back with a lower grade than it had before?

Yes. Absolutely yes.

I recently submitted a slabbed Morgan dollar with black toning that almost looks like overspray from a can of black spray paint (it is not paint, just the color and way it is toning). I was charged the $5 inspection fee and the slab was returned with the explanation from NCS that they did not perform conservation because if they did, that the coin's grade would be significantly impacted. Basically that means the toning is either covering some surface issue, or the act of removing the toning will cause issues with the surface. Either way, that is how it was presented to me that conservation would negatively impact the grade.

[USAuPzlBxBob]

I had forgotten that one of my gold coins had a tiny "issue."

An Apple Notes Note for my coins shows:  1876 CC abrasion on reverse below stars, and tiny black ring circle

When I looked into possibly having it addressed just now, the fees involved would be on the order of $750.

I'll live with it "As Is."

Just to show you how ridiculous it would be to spend $750 and risk a successful regrade after conservation, here is the problem issue:

At the base of the T in UNITED is a tiny, hollow, circular "something" that is black in color.

The grade on this 1876-CC Double Eagle is MS 60, and I think it squeaked under the grading radar of Details - Cleaning.

So, sending it in for conservation would be pushing my luck, since it would get another grading "going over."

 

Edited December 17, 2023 by USAuPzlBxBob
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