1800's Large Cent Mystery 1 1

[Malamute]

So I cleaned a couple corroded large cents in vinegar & salt which has had some good results... I found a few 1793's which I've never seen before... the hair on the woman is incredible, looks like a fire flame. The below one is interesting... anyone seen that mark before? A friend of mine thinks it's the Mason's but I'm not sure. 

 

[Moxie15]

what you see is a counter stamp of one ssort or another. It only will add value if it is recorded in the published book (I forget the name and author)

[Sandon]

On 10/16/2024 at 12:19 PM, Malamute said:

I found a few 1793's which I've never seen before

   These would be much more interesting to us and potentially much more valuable than a dateless (1816-35) Matron Head cent with a counterstamp.  I would be very careful with these, as the "cleaning" process you are using could potentially do far more harm than good.  A coin identifiable by this date or as a 1793-only "Chain" or "Wreath" type should be professionally conserved or perhaps just left alone.

On 10/16/2024 at 3:25 PM, Moxie15 said:

It only will add value if it is recorded in the published book (I forget the name and author)

   The author's name is "Brunk". I don't know the name of the book offhand, but it is the pieces counterstamped with the names of contemporary merchants that are usually of interest to a group of specialized collectors. Counterstamps are damage to most of us.

[Malamute]

I don't know which ones are 1700's vs 1800's... I can only see detail on a few but the rest are impossible. 

The vinegar solution in my opinion did a nice job... at least I can see dates. The one flipped over is a 1818. 

I searched the 1700's coins online because I wasn't sure what they were, I'd never seen flowing hair like that on a coin. They don't seem to be worth much, are they worth the expense to restore? 

[l.cutler]

The 1793 coins would be very valuable.  Can you post pictures of those?

[Sandon]

   If you don't want to buy a "Red Book", use the NGC Coin Explorer, https://www.ngccoin.com/coin-explorer/united-states and/or PCGS Coinfacts, https://www.pcgs.com/coinfacts to identify your coins.

   Even extremely worn and/or damaged examples of 1793 cents of all three different design types that year can sell for thousands of dollars due to their rarity and collector demand. So far, the images you have shown are of much more common later types and are worth only a few dollars each due to their poor condition and having been "cleaned", leaving an undesirable pinkish color.

   See, specifically, 1793 CHAIN "AMERICA" 1C MS | Coin Explorer | NGC (ngccoin.com), 1793 WREATH VINE&BARS 1C MS | Coin Explorer | NGC (ngccoin.com), and 1793 LIBERTY CAP 1C MS | Coin Explorer | NGC (ngccoin.com) for illustrations, basic information, and a retail price guide. The pricing is for unimpaired pieces but even corroded pieces that are identifiable could have substantial value. (The "Liberty Cap" design was also used for pieces dated 1794, 1795, and some 1796 and also have value, though usually not as much.)

[Malamute]

I ordered a bunch of the red books but have yet to receive them. I don't know if Amazon is waiting until they have more orders to print more or what but my ship date is 12/18/24. 

I've tried to photograph the 1793-1797 coins several times but the dates don't show... they are so faint. Maybe I can run the images through photoshop later and see if I can do anything image editing wise to improve them. 

[Sandon]

On 10/16/2024 at 6:03 PM, Malamute said:

I ordered a bunch of the red books

   All you need is one current (2025) or recent edition of the standard A Guide Book of United States Coins, which is what we refer to as the "Red Book", for basic information about U.S. coins. It is currently available from its publisher in several versions at https://whitman.com/books-by-series/red-book-blue-book/. Either the softcover, spiral bound version at $17.95 or the hardcover version at $19.95 are sufficient. (I bought the softcover for $17 at a coin show last weekend.) I suggest that, if possible, you cancel the Amazon order that won't ship for months and order one from Whitman. (I don't know what other books you ordered.)

  Try to show us the best images of the coins you think are from "1793-1797". I don't have any of the 1793 large cents in my collection--refer to the links I provided to the NGC Coin Explorer for their images--but here are images of pieces of the other basic types in better condition:

1794-96 Liberty Cap ("Head of 1794"; there are several different head styles):

1796-1807 Draped Bust:

1808-1814 Classic Head:

 

1816-1835 Matron Head:

1835-39 Modified Matron Head (one of several different subtypes):

1839-1857 Braided Hair:

   The pieces we have seen so far are mostly of the Braided Hair type, with a few of the Matron Head type.

 

Edited October 16 by Sandon

[J P M]

On 10/16/2024 at 12:19 PM, Malamute said:

So I cleaned a couple corroded large cents in vinegar & salt which has had some good results.

Why are you trying to clean coins if you do not even have the knowledge of what a red book is. There are many of us that have years and years of experience that will say stop now before you do more damage. Your pink coins are not good looking. This hobby is not an overnight project it is a lifetime of knowledge that never ends. There is no rush in numismatics only regrets from those that do. Try to slow down and find the best options available it will be worth the wait.  

[Malamute]

On 10/16/2024 at 8:21 PM, J P M said:

Why are you trying to clean coins if you do not even have the knowledge of what a red book is. There are many of us that have years and years of experience that will say stop now before you do more damage. Your pink coins are not good looking. This hobby is not an overnight project it is a lifetime of knowledge that never ends. There is no rush in numismatics only regrets from those that do. Try to slow down and find the best options available it will be worth the wait.  

Relax... I've got over 6000 of these pennies. I grabbed one from each of the 18 bags. I can afford to "damage" 18 of them. 

If I'm not supposed to clean them what are they worth not knowing if they are a 1847 or 1794? If I leave them green nobody will ever know what they are and they will be worthless. I'm not cleaning them wanting to sell them, I just want to know what they are. Besides, I have about 500 x 1819-1857 good ones (different loot) passed down through the family that are worthless like below. 

[Malamute]

I just noticed the ones I cleaned in vinegar and salt have nicer details than to supposedly 'good one' above. Isn't that ironic. 

[Rob’s Coins]

Did you also know that if you hypothetically had a brown 1847 cent in MS67 grade it would be worth $13k.  And if you cleaned it like you did it and made it a bright red, it would be worth $0.  Interesting hobby, you should stick around and learn from the guys here trying to give advice.  Wonder why your family hung on to them for over 100 years?  

 

[Malamute]

On 10/16/2024 at 10:20 PM, Rob’s Coins said:

Did you also know that if you hypothetically had a brown 1847 cent in MS67 grade it would be worth $13k.  And if you cleaned it like you did it and made it a bright red, it would be worth $0.  Interesting hobby, you should stick around and learn from the guys here trying to give advice.  Wonder why your family hung on to them for over 100 years?  

 

How much was the coin worth when it had thick green corrosion blocking the date? 

[Malamute]

On 10/16/2024 at 10:20 PM, Rob’s Coins said:

Did you also know that if you hypothetically had a brown 1847 cent in MS67 grade it would be worth $13k.  And if you cleaned it like you did it and made it a bright red, it would be worth $0.  Interesting hobby, you should stick around and learn from the guys here trying to give advice.  Wonder why your family hung on to them for over 100 years?  

 

Also the 1847 is stuck to another coin. That automatically cleaned or not likely makes it worthless. How would you separate two coins corroded together? It's a serious question... I have tried and they are pretty well fused together. 

[Rob’s Coins]

$0 —>. Properly cleaned and preserved —> we will never know…

im not trying to be mean, just trying to make you think twice.  There are acceptable cleaning / dip solutions with the proper knowledge.  Unfortunately I’m not the one to ask, but there are proper methods usually guarded by people with the knowledge of preservation.  Unfortunately they took years and $ to learn the skills and chemicals and not willing to give that info free.  

Edited October 17 by Rob’s Coins

[Sandon]

On 10/16/2024 at 10:00 PM, Malamute said:

Besides, I have about 500 x 1819-1857 good ones (different loot) passed down through the family that are worthless like below. 

   Actually, the 1848 (a common date) appears to be in Very Good or so grade, with a retail value of approximately $28. Cleaned to an unnatural pink like the ones you've shown above, the value would likely fall by more than half, and they would be difficult to sell. 

   I urge you to leave the corroded pieces alone until you have a better idea of what you are doing. They will likely stay as they are if left alone, but if ruined by improper treatment, there will be no going back.

[powermad5000]

I as well would wait to attempt to do anything to try to properly conserve these cents to find out what they are. I get it, they are terribly corroded. But you don't really want to use the method you are currently doing only to uncover a rare cent from the 1700's that somehow made its way into the bag. That pink color is not good. To give you an idea, I was looking at a 1794 Liberty Cap cent at a major coin show this year, and passed on it because of the asking price which the dealer was not willing to budge on. The particular cent I was interested in had corrosion and was XF in details and mostly brown but the asking price was $2,900. I thought that to be a little high for the corrosion present, and tried to get the dealer down to a more reasonable (at least I thought so) $2,000 but he would not budge so we never met on a deal on it.

The point of me telling you this is I was more than willing to pay $2,000 for a cent like this with the corrosion present. If that same cent had that pinkish color to it, however, I would not have even asked the dealer to take it out of the case no matter what he was asking for it. If you do have a cent of the likes of the early cents in that bag, it is worth waiting until you do research to find out how to somewhat get back to the surface and tell what it is without turning them that color.

[J P M]

Maybe Mike will help you with this, he has a method of dealing with copper. and then again maybe not. 

[JKK]

I get it. If you can't even tell what it is, it's worth zero. You're not going to send in thousands of coins to be "conserved" because that would be insanity.

You're just never going to get any traction here about cleaning because the reflex chorus will simply order you not to. This is not a bad thing, and most of the time, they're right. As in 99.99% of the time. Most of the coin cleaning wannabes are seeking to make their coins "shinny" because to them, "shinny" is better. They are also naive enough to think that no one will be able to tell they were cleaned. You are dealing with the reflex reactions developed from decades, literally, of daily having people bring in junk and want to know if making it "shinny" will help it. It's the same as all the people who are rude as f-bomb to every new person who brings in a parking lot coin. They're bored with just saying "not an error." They have to get sarcastic and snotty, even when the person doesn't argue with them (when the person does, far as I'm concerned let 'em have it). Some make almost a life philosophy out of insensitivity and imagine that this makes them better persons, more helpful. In this forum, it is often necessary to look past this rudeness because no one seems able to change it. It has become a sort of self-reinforcing echo chamber: If that person is a phallus to people for no good reason, this gives me permission to let my own Inner Phallus pop out.

Obviously, I am immune to peer pressure.

Now, your cents. In the world of ancients, there are methods of dealing with what we call bronze disease. We deal with cruddy and crusty old stuff all the time. If it's encrustation, like big coin clods found in fields that were once someone's Gallic stash bag circa 340 CE who never came back for it, usually that's done with electricity. I've never tried that, because I've never encountered a coin clod. If it's bronze disease, which is a specific term for a specific condition that will eventually eat the coin and make it look like a smurf sneezed on it, there's a way to help with that. It was a copper of Magnentius and it had the smurf mucous. However, the problem with that way is that a) it takes a long time, and b) even when the snot is off it, there'll still be corrosion roughness (and I'm not taking anything to that). So far the bronze disease hasn't come back to mine. And no, I'm not going to post the method here--but I've said enough for you to find it.

As for whether a bronze disease cleaning method (I refuse to call it "conservation," partly because I am so cynical about the grading services' use of vocabulary) is appropriate for 1800s large cents, that I do not know. I do know that if you have 6000, it's okay to experiment on a few of the most utterly crapped-up ones. Your odds of destroying a massive Rare Error Value are very low. Your odds of having unidentifiable coins be worth something are even lower. The hardest thing to clean, though, is zinc. There is sort of a way, but not a great way, and best not used unless you can't even identify it. (Nope, not posting that either.)

Edited October 19 by JKK

[Mike Meenderink]

OK guys as you know I do this professionally for ancient and modern coin collectors as well as myself.. I do this with chemicals, base solutions and electrolytic baths (concretion dissolution) as well as mechanical conservators' tools like brass brushes wood picks and alike.  All the things this op wants to do CAN be done properly BUT>>>>>NOT BY A LAYMAN. You must have deep knowledge of metallurgy, corrosion processes, coin condition, acids, bases, corrosion products as well as a firm grasp of chemistry and ALL its applications before you will have real success. Coins treated by my conservation work have undergone grading by experts at NGC many times. None have ever graded corrosion removed or cleaned. To accomplish this, you must have deep knowledge of coin grading, surface characteristics and proper coin color and condition. Most coins will NOT respond well to even a professional conservation method due to the permanent underlying damage caused by corrosion. The most difficult part of coin conservation is knowing when it's NOT going to help and to just let it be.

[Mike Meenderink]

By creating an unmeasured vinegar and salt solution you have produced an unknown PH acid. In simple terms, the acid (vinegar) reacts with the base (salt) to produce a new compound – sodium acetate. The reaction can be represented by the equation: CH3COOH (acetic acid) + NaCl (salt) → CH3COONa (sodium acetate) + H2O (water) This has adverse effects on the copper coin on a molecular level causing irregular discoloration of the copper molecules turning the coin pink or what I call a stinky pinky. Easily recognized by any decent coin collector or grader.

Edited October 18 by Mike Meenderink

[Mike Meenderink]

You may due to the numerous low condition copper coins covered in Malachite (blue green verdi) treat them in small groups in a 5% molar Sesquicarbonate Base solution. In a Pyrex container measure 10.6 grams of Sodium Carbonate (Soda Ash) and 8.4 grams of Sodium Bicarbonate (Baking Soda). Then add 100ml of distilled water. Then add coins in the solution being sure to cover with the solution. Cover to reduce evaporation. Shelf for 5 days. The solution will be turning blue.. After 5 days remove all coins from bath and soak in clean distilled water to stop reaction. Inspect coins. This process can continue until desired results are achieved. You must change to a new fresh solution upon each removal and rinse. This 5% molar solution can be weakened to 2.5% by adding 200ml of distilled water to the same amounts of carbonates listed above for the less encrusted coins. Blue green verdigris is a corrosion product that is acidic. This solution is a base. A base is the opposite of acidic. The solution "eats" acids only. Thats how it works without discoloration of the metal. Cheers goodluck...keep learning...

Edited October 18 by Mike Meenderink

[Malamute]

On 10/18/2024 at 12:24 PM, Mike Meenderink said:

This has adverse effects on the copper coin on a molecular level causing irregular discoloration of the copper molecules turning the coin pink or what I call a stinky pinky. Easily recognized by any decent coin collector or grader.

I'm not concerned at all what graders or collectors think because I have no plans to grade or sell them. Due to the heavy corrosion, the stampings have been eaten away and are so thin none would grade or be worth much. Judging from what is on eBay, which looks a thousand times nicer for $30 tops... these coins are too far gone to worry about. 

But please don't assume I'm not grateful for all the advice and knowledge on how to restore them. I'll try Mark's solution and see if it produces anything worthwhile... by that I don't mean his solution won't work, I mean if the pennies have legible stampings. I might end up tossing a handful in a bunch of bags and sending them out to all you. I have no attachment to them, they are not like my gold coins that are family heirlooms. I have enjoyed cleaning them to unlock the mystery of what they are. I remember putting them in my safe in 2001 and questioning if I even needed to, I thought they were junk coins. 

Edited October 18 by Malamute

[VKurtB]

If you absolutely MUST “Richard” with some of them, limit yourself to the holed ones. 

[Mike Meenderink]

On 10/18/2024 at 10:04 AM, Malamute said:

I'm not concerned at all what graders or collectors think because I have no plans to grade or sell them. Due to the heavy corrosion, the stampings have been eaten away and are so thin none would grade or be worth much. Judging from what is on eBay, which looks a thousand times nicer for $30 tops... these coins are too far gone to worry about. 

But please don't assume I'm not grateful for all the advice and knowledge on how to restore them. I'll try Mark's solution and see if it produces anything worthwhile... by that I don't mean his solution won't work, I mean if the pennies have legible stampings. I might end up tossing a handful in a bunch of bags and sending them out to all you. I have no attachment to them, they are not like my gold coins that are family heirlooms. I have enjoyed cleaning them to unlock the mystery of what they are. I remember putting them in my safe in 2001 and questioning if I even needed to, I thought they were junk coins. 

If you can get the verdigris off using this method and the coins come out brownish red with decently smooth surfaces or smooth surfaces you have conserved the coin and it will need to be stabilized to prevent environmental damage continuing on the coin. Apply a small amount of mineral oil to the better coins from this process to seal the surfaces. You may also use a conservators sealer wax and even copper coin duller to even out the colors and surfaces. There may be a few that can be brought back. really...Below top is a worst case test scenario like most of your coins but just higher grade details. Not a nice coin due to corrosion damage beneath but as you can see all malachite dissolved by base sodium sesquicarbonate solution. Coin below verdigris spot removed and coin sealed and conserved. Same method much nicer coin.

Edited October 18 by Mike Meenderink

[Malamute]

One of the coins I designated for the vinegar solution (don't worry I've stopped that process), I think I can vaguely read 1792. I wonder what it is! Time to acquire Mike's recipe list.... or should I not attempt to clean this one at all? BTW the date doesn't photograph at all or I would post it. 

[powermad5000]

On 10/19/2024 at 12:32 AM, Malamute said:

I think I can vaguely read 1792.

1792 could be one of the several George Washington pieces. I would try Mike's idea on this maybe and be careful with it. If it is, it might not be valued very high, but it would value higher than most of the other large cents in your bag outside of the 1793-1796 ones.

[Rob’s Coins]

Malamute, I keep looking at that first coin you posted with the counter stamp.  That looks so cool!  Even with the corrosion…. Looks like a pirate coin.  It’s not, just saying…. Looks like cool buried treasure!  Very neat!  

Looks like you got some good tips on here.