Is there any dough in buying cleaned coins and wearing them down?

[pendragon1998]

I was just wondering before I stumbled off to bed - is there any money to be made buying cleaned higher-grade coins on the cheap and then wearing them down past the cleaning to resell?

[thebeav]

Interesting post.....

The biggest problem with cleaned coins is the lack of luster. Even a VF grade has a good degree of luster left on it. Of course, cleaning would remove all of this for the most part. So, a hugher grade coin, with a lack of luster, can never be rendered to an acceptable appearance.

Furthermore, coins with a good deal of value and a good spread in value, probably could not be purchased at a big enough bargain price to make a few grades of wear a viable option.

 

Paul

[cladking]

There used to be.

 

If you did a lot of work or running it was all the better since these are the best ways to wear down coins. Even easier was just dirtying up cleaned copper coins. These used to be available at about ten cents on the dollar and all you had to do was put them on your furnace and wait. It was best to clean them again first and remove corrosion with oil but it was mostly just a matter of time. Even damaged coins would often look OK after the cleaning wasn't visible any more.

 

Silver was a little more difficult and cu/ ni usually isn't worth the effort.

 

Now days culls bring a lot more money because there are more people doing this so it's probably a lot tougher to do.

[pendragon1998]

Huh....I had this idea about putting cleaned coins in cloth bags and leaving them in my dryer for a few months to simulate a year of pocket wear. Guess it's more trouble than it's worth.

[MunkyMan95]

Huh....I had this idea about putting cleaned coins in cloth bags and leaving them in my dryer for a few months to simulate a year of pocket wear. Guess it's more trouble than it's worth.

 

Though monetarily it might not be worth it, you could get some cool results.