Damaged modern gold coin, how?
waisaacs
Posts: 88 ✭✭
Hi All,
New here, I've been lurking for a bit. I appreciate the collective experience you all have, and the generally helpful and friendly tone of all the discussions.
I recently went through an old trunk of my Dad's, which had a handful of coins. I should say up front that all I know about collectible coins is what I have learned in the past month or so, checking if Dad had any surprises hiding in the trunk (he didn't). The "collection" was a few US mint and proof sets, and then mostly loose pennies and nickels from when he was young, with a few Whitmans partly filled in. It was nostalgic for me to see a few well worn Buffalo nickels, Indian cents, and some wartime steel that I'm sure he set aside as a kid.
Anyway, there were also two each of the 1986 silver eagle dollars and the $5 gold eagles, in acrylic
I learned elsewhere that these are "Capital holders" that were commonly used for coins like these. One of the gold eagles has some sort of damage on the reverse
First let me say that I'm not claiming some kind of valuable "Mint defect" - that seems to be a popular theme for questions from the short time I've been reading here. I'm mostly just curious what happened to this coin, as I can't imagine Dad buying it in the state I found it. I don't have it currently in hand, I left it with the rest of my Dad's stuff to take care of on a future trip, so these phone camera pics are all I can provide now.
Any guesses on how that damage happened? When I next go back I plan to crack open the holder and see if I can clean it up. I feel safe in assuming that I can't devalue it further (and that bullion price is my expectation for this one).
Thanks,
Bill
Comments
Some sort of contaminant (I think I can see it) was on the coin's surface and caused all that tarnish.
I would not try to clean it. If you know what you are doing and have the necessary materials you could try to dip it. In any case it is what it is.
Looks like left over solder, might be heat damage from having a mount removed.
My Collection of Old Holders
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Looks like the source contaminant is below the R. The safest thing to try is to soak the coin in pure acetone. You can get it at a hardware store. It evaporates very quickly and is highly flammable so do it outside, small glass bowl covered with foil. Acetone will not damage gold so a soak can be hours. IMHO. Good luck. Peace Roy
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I doubt that it is solder, but rather is just some sort of schmutz that was on the coin and that caused it to tone a bit oddly in that spot.
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Was it typical for coin shops/dealers to buy bulk bullion coins from the mint, then put them in these Capital holders to sell? I suppose it's generous to assume that the coin would be handled properly even in that scenario, and I'll never really know the full history.
Does look like possible heat damage, though who would solder a gold coin to anything?
CoinFacts says 5.33% copper. Is that the culprit?
Thanks Roy for the acetone usage details, is that what JBK meant by "dip"? Again apologies for the newbie questions.
The coin toned in the holder, and it can be conserved back to basically a pristine condition if you want to go that route. I would only do this if the coin has sentimental value to you and you’re going to keep it. Numismatically, it’s worth about $200 right now, which is not worth the cost of sending it to either pcgs or NGC to conserve and grade/holder. Do not try and clean this coin on your own, let the coin grading companies do it.
Thanks for the advice. FWIW the second coin didn't show any "toning"
I've seen that term here, sometimes with a positive context and sometimes not.
Again, I'm not trying to find value that's not there in these coins, I just couldn't understand, from a physics or chemistry background, what happened to that one reverse. I can accept "unknown contaminant" and let it go, I just thought someone here might have seen the identical problem before.
Gold coins of that purity can develop copper spots thanks to the copper content.
To me, yours looks like a spot of carbon or sulphur or who knows what was on the coin, probably from the mint.
That Capitol holder would not have been a freebie from the dealer unless he overcharged.
My guess is that acetone might remove the source contaminant but not the tarnish. A coin cleaner/dip would do that
You have one nice gold coin so that softens the blow on this one.
Here is a photo taken from etsy of a gold coin with a lapel pin soldered to it. There is also another example of this type of mount that you can also see posted to the current thread on gold dollars on the front page of this forum.
Or it may just be some organic substance on the coin as also suggested.
My Collection of Old Holders
Never a slave to one plastic brand will I ever be.
As I said I'm new to coins but that's painful for even me to look at.
Now you're just messing with me...
Thanks again all for the advice. Back to lurking mode.
Bullion coins. That's what they are meant for.
He's not messing with you. It is not uncommon to have contaminants from the Mint.
Forgot to add my sarcasm tags. And I get your comment too about bullion coins, I suppose it's meant (or at least it's acquired) primarily to be a hunk of precious metal, and it continues to be that even if soldered to a pin.
@waisaacs ... Welcome aboard. Good advice above.... Attempting to clean that coin - beyond acetone, that is safe - should only be done by experts. Nice coins though... Cheers, RickO