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How long does it take to wear down an Ike?
moursund
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I bought 100 circulated Eisenhower dollars, picked the one that look the most worn, and now I've been rubbing at it with my thumb for a week or so. If I work on this for let's say an hour a day, how long before I start seeing noticeable further wear?
.
Edited to add:. Isn't that a hella nice picture of my Ike? 😀
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It'll wear down faster if you carry it in your pocket with your other pocket change.
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
You'll wear the skin off your thumb before you wear much metal off the coin.
Will it get smoother that way, or just gradually more beat up? And if jangling around with other coins wears it down, how is that fundamentally different than coins in a tumbler?
That's no skin off my nose... Skin keeps growing back... 😉
I assume you want to have the wear look natural. Carrying the coin with other coins will impart natural wear. Of course, it will take many years.
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
But until the skin grows back on your fingers, you'll feel bad
Rubbing for 1 hour every day for 5 years will lower it variables of ms- AU 5 years. AU- F 5 more years. F-G 5 additional years. Your results may vary on skin type and pressure applied during rubbing. This is fairly correct accurate data. 🙃
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In pocket, with other coins, your keys, etc. It will take quite a while. I carried around an SAE like that pretty much daily for a couple of years and it was still AU50-ish after all that; your Ike surely presents a more durable surface. I realize you're sort of past this point with that Ike, but you can learn a lot that way starting with an unc coin and watching as it changes.
At some point in my travels I wound up with a Bicentennial Ike that's worn down to ~AG03 and I've often wondered how much carrying it around somebody had to do to produce that result. Decades I suspect.
If you are in a hurry to wear down your coin, you could try rubbing it on a Walmat parking lot. It'll wear down a lot faster than using your thumb but you probably won't like the results.
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
I would expect my thumb to do a smoother job than, say, a belt sander. I just wondered if I would notice it happening over months, or would it take years...
Need more friction than a thumb would provide
Rosin? 🤔😜
Rosin?
You’d probably put a blister on your thumb.
Anyway strictly rubbing over the surface like that will likely leave it polished.
I accidentally polished a pocket piece peace by not having enough coins in there. It’s not a mirror but it shines.
This is a very interesting post. I wondered the same thing about a Morgan about a year ago. Carried it around for several months and handled it often. It was about low AU when I got it and now looks AU cleaned because it is shiny from all the handling. Seriously, how did dollar coins in commerce ever get worn down to G-VG. How many transactions would that have taken? It’s fascinating. Would make for a very interesting experiment in a controlled lab environment.
Longer than it takes than to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop
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I wonder how it would fare if you started with a belt sander and then carried it around as pocket piece to smoothen the surfaces for a few years.
Here's a small grouping I just picked up yesterday. Even if you wear them down, the upside is small unless they're slabbed.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/133940914522?nma=true&si=6KIlel88N52zn9%2BXQexbHbx0HYY%3D&orig_cvip=true&nordt=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557
peacockcoins
What?!? I was counting on making a fortune by wearing down Ike dollars with my thumb and selling them on Etsy..
It would depend on how much grit is on your thumb, If your hands were clean, it would take almost forever to wear it down where it would even be noticeable.
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
At least 200 years.
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Put it in a vibratory cartridge case cleaner with coarse grit... It will wear evenly and only take days, not years. Rubbing with your thumb will take several lifetimes. Cheers, RickO
Great suggestion. When you're done, you can carry it in your pocket with some pocket change for a few weeks to give it a more natural circulated coin look. Please let us know what course of action you choose and let us know the results.
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
I've got 3 90% pieces I carry, one for at least 5 years and a couple for 3+. You'd barely notice the difference.
It takes 3 licks to get to the center of a Ike
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Love the pic 😎
Agree, close to a lifetime. I've had this keychain for 30 years and use it everyday, multiple times a day, also thumbing it for good luck. My Dad had it for about 20 years before he passed on and I took possession. I believe it was UNC or AU+ when he got it and had it holed. Looks like a VF now. Maybe my grandchildren can get it to Good.
That's what I was thinking, but I didn't want to crunch on it and break all my teeth.
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Young Numismatist
This is about 35 years of wear as a keychain in my pocket.
It takes 3 licks to get to the center of a tootsie roll pop...........according to the wise owl
Steve
>
It will take much longer than years with your finger I believe. And when it finally showed wear it would be more in some spots than others and there would be a "washboard effect" as well. By weight you'll deposit far more than you rub off.
Put it in a pocket with other coins at least to the level of the Ike standing on edge and then do some hard work like digging ditches, turning big rocks into little ones, or dragging pyramids and you'll be amazed how quickly it wears down. If you want to do less work then grind the rims off before you start since they just get in the way of wearing it down.
In the old days every time you saw a man working you could hear the change wearing out in his pocket if you were close enough. In those days the coins wore quickly because they were nice soft silver and mostly copper and they wore evenly because most of the wear was in pockets. Now very few do much physical work and the few that do carry little change. It results in scratches and dings on the hard cu/ ni and then it gets beat up more in counters. There's very little wear now days and coins are more beaten into a lower grade rather than rubbed out gradually.
Makes you wonder about the low grade slabbed clad coins in those low ball sets. Are they truly natural circulation/pocket pieces, or did they have help? I guess if they're certified, they must be legit 🤔
Like in football, PCGS needs indisputable visual evidence to reverse a call...
None of them wore out in circulation. But circulation wear can be duplicated by various means and all of the low ball grades I've seen are appropriately applied. Remembe4r every coin in circulation has a unique path that involves many millions of collisions and various materials and other coins sliding over it in different ways. A coin used for a Saturday poker game for years will acquire the same type of wear as others. It is simply irrelevant and unknowable how any coin got into VF or Poor condition, merely whether or not the resultant wear is "natural".
The heaviest worn quarters in circulation were in G+ condition before they started getting removed by the banks or FED probably around 2008. These laid out at the bottom end of a bell curve. The odds of any quarter being significantly more worn than this were infinitesimal. Ikes don't even circulate so you do the math.
Now days the most heavily worn quarters are in VG. I suspect light coins are being removed but it's possible that they are going after thin ones. It's much easier to remove light coins than thin coins.
Mrs Ike could probably wear down Ike in one good argument.
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