Gold experts how can you tell that this St.Gaudens was cleaned?
goldrealmoney79
Posts: 417 ✭✭✭
As title states, I am a noob to gold and was curious whats the giveaway on this piece that it was cleaned?
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goldrealmoney79
Posts: 417 ✭✭✭
goldrealmoney79
Posts: 417 ✭✭✭
Comments
The graders probably saw one or more patches of hairlines while tilting and rotating the coin under a halogen lamp.
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
There isn’t necessarily a giveaway in the images. Often, a coin needs to be viewed in-hand and tilted/rotated under a light, in order to see the cleaning.
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
Damn that’s a lot of bids
Yep... Needs to be viewed under a light, in hand, and turned in various directions to spot the hairlines. Other than that, I just see some captured smudge in a few isolated areas. Cheers, RickO
Not my coin.
For the Grader is easy. The gold used in that time has his own characteristics and colors if was clean or deep. They can spot this in a few seconds. Then are others tests to confirm the first impression.
NEVER ARGUE WITH AN IDIOT.
FIRST THEY WILL DRAG YOU DOWN TO THEIR LEVEL.
THEN, THEY WILL BEAT YOU WITH EXPERIENCE.
MARK TWAIN
From what I understand as I sharpen my knowledge (always learning) is that, yes, the responses here pretty much tell the story.
Cleaning often only shows up after rotating the coin under light, as it will not be evident at all angles.
Pete
In the sellers images, the coin looks washed out to me. TV is a bit more difficult to distinguish.
Type Collector of U.S. Pre-33 Gold https://instagram.com/deplorable_dan Successful transactions with- @drfish, @Cladiator, @johnny010, @Pedzola, @PerryHall, @2windy2fish, @Ike1964, @JohnThePainter, @rpmsrpms, @REALGATOR
had it not been cleaned it would likely have still graded "Details" due to what appears to be 'mounting' damage to the obverse at 9 and 3 o'clock.
It will happen suddenly
It’s literally impossible to judge a coin with only pictures.
This.
Professional Numismatist. "It's like God, Family, Country, except Sticker, Plastic, Coin."
If you look at the blowups very closely you can see some hairlines. The coin also looks possibly dipped at some point imo.
RIP Mom- 1932-2012
NGC and some other indicate whether it's obverse or reverse cleaning. This one looks bad on the reverse, near the sun.
Countless coins that have been dipped and/or exhibit hairlines are in straight grade holders. In this case, I don't think the images necessarily lead to the conclusion that the coin would have received a details grade. An in-hand inspection might tell a very different story.
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
Agree with the others. On EBay Only buy from people with great reviews. I learned the hard way. I bought from a LCS that wasn’t the most ethical. He averaged his coins & I ended up with a few cleaned St Gaudens, 1 cleaned $10 Liberty, 1 cleaned $2.50 and a wiped $1 gold dollar. The only saving Grace was that gold was around $1,000-1,200 at the time. So he got me a couple of times (4) but lost a good customer who’s continued to buy, just not from him.
Mike
MIKE B.
It's on eBay, so it's probably cleaned
On the web: http://www.earlyus.com