Cleaned circulated coins

[Brotherman]

There is a question that has been bugging me. Let me preface this by saying

I’m talking about CIRCULATED coins – MS coins are a whole other matter.

 

My question is this:

How can you tell if a circulated coin has been cleaned by looking for hairlines?

 

It doesn’t make sense. Coins that have traveled about in pockets and purses

are rubbing up against God knows what are bound to have hairline scratches

and are probably getting new ones every time they are handled. Keep in mind

I don’t mean circular patterns of hairlines, or eraser marks, or q-tip dipped

spot cleaning – I just mean scattered hairlines.

 

Furthermore, what about those found on common dated coins. That really

throws me. Why would anyone go to all the trouble of cleaning common

dates just to sell them for the next grade higher – especially when the next

grade up is only a buck or so difference in price? The time and materials

spent cleaning them would burn up any profits that could be made.

 

Please don’t answer this by saying, “Well, you have to spend a lot of

years looking at thousands of coins to be able to tell.” Because frankly, that’s

not an answer at all. If there aren’t specific things to look for then it’s

just a “feeling” or a “hunch”. A “feeling” and a buck-fifty will get you a cup

of coffee.

Hays

 

When I re-read this I thought I sounded mad. I’m not mad - just frustrated.

[zrlevin]

Hi Hays ,

 

I'm by no means an expert, but from other's posts, in addition to owning a few cleaned coins myself, I have learned a little bit about cleaned coins.

 

In my experience, abrasively cleaned coins like those you speak of sometimes have uneven luster because the cleaning was poorly done or stopped halfway, meaning that some parts of a coin will be much shinier than other parts, or parts are harder to reach with a cloth, pencil eraser or a Q-tip.

 

On any circulated coin, you will find hairlines. As you said, this could be from the inside of a person's pocket or purse. Take your change out of your pocket right now and pick out an old quarter, from the 60's or 70's. It will have wear, but will be pretty shiney, Much shinier than it really should be. That is because while it is rubbing in your pocket or whatever, it is being abrasively cleaned and gathering hairlines. An original circulated coin will almost always have hairlines, but not the heavy hairlines usually found on intentionally or aggressively cleaned coins. Also, hairlines on cleaned coins will usually be easily seen and going in the same direction, while an original coin's hairlines will be much lighter, scattered and going every which way.

 

I know you don't want to hear it, but to tell for sure, "you have to spend a lot of years looking at thousands of coins". That is something I am trying to do, to reach the level of the coin experts on these boards!

 

I hope this helped,

 

Zach

[Brotherman]

Yeah, yeah – I just KNEW some one would use the old “you have to look at a

lot of coins” line… How could you resist when I worded my question

like that.

 

I guess I should have spent more time on my question. Abrasive cleaning

will of course leave hairlines. Anyone that has polished anything knows that

you have to follow a pattern – that pattern leaves hairlines all going in the

same direction. That’s a sure sign of cleaning.

And I also understand that there are other factors that come into play as well,

like the coloring on a coin. A 150 year old silver coin – particularly a

circulated example, shouldn’t be blast white. You don’t need to look for

hairlines when you see a coin like that. Every original silver coin – even

the MS ones – that people call blast-white aren’t blast-white anyway.

They usually have a hint of yellow – which is a good thing. Silver is

highly corrosive in oxygen and it starts the very second it is minted.

You don’t need to look at coins for ten years to know that, though I will

admit the yellow tinting can be VERY subtle.

 

Every now and then someone will post an old dark silver coin and someone

will pop up and say that it has had an old cleaning because of some

scattered hairlines. I’m thinking, “NO! That’s no enough evidence!” I just

never mustered the strength to object. There have been others that have

posted an old “darkish” silver coin that clearly has been cleaned at one

time because the cleaning couldn’t get between all the letters and dentils

so there are remnants of the original skin there.

 

I probably shouldn’t have posted without photos.

I’ll try to “cowboy-up” and speak my mind when I see one I’m

talking about.

 

Hays

[Oldtrader3]

Many times you can pick out cleaned circulated coins because they have superficial, light, surface scratches as through someone hand rubbed them with a cloth that is lightly covered with an abbrasive medium (i.e. jeweler's rouge, toothpaste, or silver polish), similar to the way you would polish stirling flatware. Many times these lines are circular, but not always. Sometimes, a collector will rub a smaller area in order to remove verdegris (or discoloration) with a Q-tip dipped in acetone or dilute acid. This may also leave a lighter rubbed area on the coin's surface. Rim damage that has been repaired is another watch-out with circulated coins

[Brotherman]

OT3,

I grant you that all of what you said is true. These people are as much a

“coin doctor” as the guys that produce AT coins. I can at least understand

the motivations behind the AT route. Take a common date $40 Morgan – a

quick dip in his magic soup and it’s worked up into a big old Moose-ish coin

with skyrocket colors and he sells it for $500, and walks away with a nice

460 dollar wad of greed.

 

BUT…

 

Another guy takes a $5 1939 Walking Liberty half in Fine grade, bangs out

the dented in rim, fills in a few other nicks, scrubs it clean – or touches up a

little black gunk and sells it to his mark as an EF common date Walker for

a whopping 8 dollars. His doctoring netted him a whole 3 bucks in profit.

 

Does that really sound logical? Even when you can find EF grades of

common Walkers in junk silver bins?

 

Hays

[Oldtrader3]

No it does not make sense to doctor $5 coins on E-bay. These guys must have endless time on their hands.

[Brotherman]

No it does not make sense to doctor $5 coins on E-bay. These guys must have endless time on their hands.

 

You know, I wasn't even thinking of eBay...what a dope I am

 

Hays

[Morgannut]

The exact and precise scientific proof you seek isn't all that difficult to explain. As explained to me by an NGC Grader at the 2003 ANA (over several coins--they were very nice!), there are 2 big things to look at. First the lines are random directions as you stated. Second, not only must the directionality be randon, THE LENGTHS, must be random. Essentially if you plotted the lenghs on a bar graph, there would be a normal curve with a wide standard deviation. Likewise for number one, directionality os randomized, on a pie or North-South type graph.

----------

While it may take awhile to see this by just looking, the grading servives at least have thought it through---and it's not just their random opinion.

 

----

Next they look for unusually dead or subdued luster or surfaces. A surface that is polished and later toned generally doesn't reflect light evenly and brightly into your eyes, or in random directions either.

----

Lastly, there are unusually bright surfaces--especially devices, from whizzing or polishing. Under the microscope there is actual metal that is moved on the surface, giving it an unatural brightness to your eye.

-----

It may look like people guess about cleaning, but it HAS been studied very, very carefully---as you would expect it comes to grading Million Dollar coins---

[Brotherman]

The exact and precise scientific proof you seek isn't all that difficult to explain. As explained to me by an NGC Grader at the 2003 ANA (over several coins--they were very nice!), there are 2 big things to look at. First the lines are random directions as you stated. Second, not only must the directionality be randon, THE LENGTHS, must be random. Essentially if you plotted the lenghs on a bar graph, there would be a normal curve with a wide standard deviation. Likewise for number one, directionality os randomized, on a pie or North-South type graph.

----------

While it may take awhile to see this by just looking, the grading servives at least have thought it through---and it's not just their random opinion.

 

----

Next they look for unusually dead or subdued luster or surfaces. A surface that is polished and later toned generally doesn't reflect light evenly and brightly into your eyes, or in random directions either.

----

Lastly, there are unusually bright surfaces--especially devices, from whizzing or polishing. Under the microscope there is actual metal that is moved on the surface, giving it an unatural brightness to your eye.

-----

It may look like people guess about cleaning, but it HAS been studied very, very carefully---as you would expect it comes to grading Million Dollar coins---

 

Oh I know your right, I just had a little meltdown. I keep forgetting how

many crooks and cheats there are in the world. When oldtrader3 posted: “No

it does not make sense to doctor $5 coins on E-bay. These guys must

have endless time on their hands.” A light just came back on in my head. Ebay

is full of crooks and it isn’t limited to the coin trade either – why else would

there be a need for the feeback rating system?

Another thing that occurred to me was PRACTICE. If you were planning to clean

a key-date coin and/or do a little rim repair would you try it out on that

key-date first? NO! You would clean dozens maybe even hundreds of

common dates first. You would try repairing those coins too. Most of the coins

I was talking about are at least 75 years old and older. How many different

hands have they been in since then? I bet many common dates have

been cleaned several times.

So,I’m all better now and firing on all cylinders again, but thanks for your input!

 

Hays

[pendragon1998]

I'll give you another suggestion: I learned more about cleaned coins and hairlines by actually cleaning a coin myself and then examining it. Find a cheap old coin, exanime it, then clean it a little and see what you see.