It breaks the heart: scarce Morgans cleaned
AntebellumGold
Posts: 73 ✭✭✭
A client brought me a big group of coins, including many Morgan and Peace dollars, and some type coins.
All of the dollars had been cleaned including these scarce ones:
1881-CC
1893-CC
1893-CC
1893-O
1894
5
Comments
The owner do it?
Yes, the owner did clean them the day before bringing them to me. Some of the type coins escaped cleaning, including an 1875-S 20 cents and some Liberty Head gold.
I never have been able to figure out why some people think cleaning coins makes them look better. Anyone who knows what they are doing trying to assemble a date/mint set of Morgans will hard pass on the coins seen in the OP.
Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.-Albert Einstein
Shiny is good!
Gotta remove that dirt!
Had a guy had a very rare high grade Morgan - was a 89CC in XF or maybe AU condition (now we will never know) and when he realized he had inherited a rare coin from his family estate (and warning for what is coming - you may choose to stop reading here!) and he decided prior to having the professional appraisal scheduled for the next day... he took a sponge and comet cleaner (that’s right - COMET CLEANSER!!) and scrubby dubbed what would have been an extremely valuable coin. He still got an appraisal but was also told what it could have been had he just left it alone!
First, people can't leave Britney alone, and now these Morgans?!
Stop the insanity!
peacockcoins
I had a customer, years ago, during the boom. Called me about selling an 1883 Hawaiian dime. "Of course I buy them"......Comes in, and yup, scrubbed an uncirculated coin 30 minutes prior.
I guess it's just one of the things that happens.......
Well, rare coins are rare for a reason…..
Wow! Cleaned isn't the word - more like "Scrubbed with a Brillo pad"
"When they can't find anything wrong with you, they create it!"
ya, of the many things in this life i WILL get over, the incalculable amount of cleaned, whizzed and scrubbed coins is NOT one of them. even after all these many years, it still boggles my mind.
Yep, still have significant value though.
"Joe's coins... We buy and sell coins and tokens... If you have some, don't clean them for God's sake"
Had a fellow at work approach me some years ago, hearing that I knew something about old coins. He wanted an appraisal on some of his nicer ones.
The next day he brings me a small group of mid grade common date large cents…..every one of them honed with brassy surfaces. I said these look like they’ve been polished! He then states with pride, oh yes, I polish all my coins once a year!
Ouch!
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I agree, I took a look at completed listings for certified 1893-CC dollars on eBay and most of the "details" graded coins were bringing 50% to 75% of the prices realized for straight graded examples.
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These coins are not so rare that I couldn't get my checkbook out fast enough to buy them. I would consider it a mistake to buy ANY of the cleaned Morgans shown in the OP if I was putting together a Morgan date/mint set. A big mistake. It's a tough world.
Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.-Albert Einstein
Reminds me of this, maybe the worst example ever of someone ruining the value of a coin?
I have known that coins dont get cleaned from about the age of ten. I do not and have not cleaned coins but always wondered why its taboo to clean a coin. Is it because it takes metal away from the coin, takes away some of the history or leaves marks on the coin. We shine up old cars and remodel old homes.
Most learn pretty early in collecting that coins should not be cleaned, when only some worthless circulated Indian or Lincoln cents have been ruined.
Unfortunately heirs sometimes get dropped in the deep end and make very costly mistakes
Collector, occasional seller
It destroys the original mint surface.
Lance.
Luster is removed and replaced with hairline scratches. Sure the result is a cleaner coin, but numismatic value disappears.
My grandmother told me she had old coins that I could have someday...then one day, she dug them out to show me but cleaned them all in bleach and scrubbed them down first.
I can recall, as an 8 or 9 year old, cleaning some cents with a pencil eraser.
I only did that a couple of times, and then thought... "They looked better before I did that.".... So, long before I learned that it should not be done, I concluded I did not like the cleaned surface. That, however, led to me preferring the coins without tarnish, but not cleaned. A narrow path to walk indeed.... 
Cheers, RickO
At last, the RickO origin story!
I did gently explain to the seller that the coins would have been better off left as is, with the dirt and patina.
I was able to acquire them at a reasonable price (along with the other unmolested type coins and some currency) and they will go on to collectors who don't want to pay a lot to fill these holes in their albums.
On the bright side they're perfect for certain showcases now.
"Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working" Pablo Picasso
Yep, had the same years ago. Woman who's husband passed called me to buy her Morgan dollars. The next morning she proudly told me she stayed up all night polishing them. ( she actually missed two rolls ). Several hundred ruined coins all in solid date rolls.
I learned then and there that any conversation starts with please don't try to clean or mess with them as that will reduce the value.
bob
Brutal
A buddy of mine (not a coin collector) posted a photo on Facebook recently of a common Morgan he's had forever, and had just cleaned, and was beaming with pride at his work. Before I could stop myself, I posted something like "You shouldn't clean coins" and his response was "Why not? I like it better this way!"
It's the mindset that makes people wash their car before taking it in as a trade.
It may be wrong, but it's natural.
There's improper cleaning and proper cleaning, or conservation.
Improper cleaning uses either abrasives or a chemical that is too aggressive and damages the coin. Proper cleaning removes only the surface contamination(like pvc residue, tape goo, etc) and leaves no trace that it was ever done, or needed to be done.
Collector, occasional seller
Even cleaned they're worth something if they are scarce, right? What did you pay for them?
Guilty of using metal polish on Lincoln wheats to make them sparkle while around that same age (and using pencil eraser on white spot on silver in an attempt to remove it).
https://www.pcgs.com/setregistry/u-s-coins/quarters/PCGS-2020-quarter-quest/album/247091
When I was in the 5th grade a classmate received a 1931-S Cent in change from the school cafeteria. He cleaned it with an eraser.
Had a man remove an 85-CC Morgan from the GSA holder to get the “color off of it” before her wanted to sell it….
what?
Britney at her best,,,,,
When I was around 10, my Grandad in TX showed me how he cleaned coins. He put a penny in a bottle capp and poured some coca-cola on it. The next morning the Penny had been completely dissolved by the the acid in the coca-cola. This is how I learned that cleaning a coin is a NO-NO. I started collecting coins a few years later and have never cleaned a coin.
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I suspect your Grandad took the penny out while you were asleep.
@MasonG I don't think so, that was in 1962 and the coca-cola then is not the new coke they say now. As kids we used to use it to remove rust on our bikes, and it worked.
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I think he must have replaced the Coca-Cola with hogwash while you slept.
As a plumber I've replaced older (60s- 70s) extra heavy weight 2" cast iron drain lines from the beverage stations at McDonald's drive up windows. The metal was gone along the bottom of the pipes. Gone. Dissolved.
Don't know about pennies dissolving overnight though.
"Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working" Pablo Picasso
The Formula in Coca-Cola in the 60s was better than WD-40 and any rust remover put together.
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They can always be overstruck. I didn't make this 2020 Carson City Mint Sesquicentennial, but I couldn't help but pick up this after someone else had it made.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words.................
"“Those who sacrifice liberty for security/safety deserve neither.“(Benjamin Franklin)
"I only golf on days that end in 'Y'" (DE59)
Don't doubt that, but dissolving a penny overnight in a bottlecap of coke sounds like an urban myth to me.
I guess you just had to be there in the summer of 1962, Lacoste TX.
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Unless you sat there all night and watched it dissolve, you weren't there, either.
It means..... people ....think.... ANYTHING.... cleaned.... is ....worth.... the ..... most.... money!