Educational thread, I think PCGS could tell I removed a black spot off of a toned Peace dollar

Mr_Spud

I had some vouchers that were going to expire, so I submitted some old raw toners that I had stashed away about 20 years ago at the last Long Beach Show. One was this old Peace dollar slider coin that I thought would be cool to have in an AU55 or 58 holder. I had forgotten that I removed a black spot off of the reverse until I looked at an old image I had of the coin from when I first purchased it. PCGS gave it an AU details grade for cleaning, which is what made me look at my old image. I don’t see any other signs of cleaning, so I figure they could tell I removed the black spot. So I figured I’d make an educational post about it.

Here’s the Trueview images of the obverse and reverse, and below that is my old image from back in the day that shows the black spot I removed. Is there anything else I’m missing where the coin looks cleaned? Or is it just the black spot removal that they noticed. If I remember correctly, I swabbed the black spot off with a q-tip soaked with a solution of EDTA to see if I could remove it without messing up the toning soon after I bought it after reading about using EDTA in that Coin Chemistry book that Weimer White wrote.

MFeld

I can’t see obvious cleaning where the spot was, or otherwise.

coinbuf

I don't see anything in the photo, but wow that color balance thing is sure still an issue.

PeakRarities

I highly doubt it’s because of the spot, but maybe the reverse color made them think it was an old cleaning and then stored in a Wayte Raymond album? When I see secondary color like that, I normally assume old cleaning,

PCGS has been very cautious as of late, I got an altered surfaces grade on a coin I cracked out of an NGC/CAC holder that really left me scratching my head.

BryceM

I'm sure you suspect the spot, but I'm guessing they didn't even notice that area. Most likely something else, or perhaps a few something elses.

Mr_Spud

@PeakRarities said:
I highly doubt it’s because of the spot, but maybe the reverse color made them think it was an old cleaning and then stored in a Wayte Raymond album? When I see secondary color like that, I normally assume old cleaning,

Maybe that’s it. The coin doesn’t have any hairlines under the toning, but maybe someone dipped it and then it retoned in an album like you mentioned. I remember when David Hall used to post on the forums that he said all toned Peace Dollars are AT because they don’t typically tone nicely naturally. This coin doesn’t look AT, but the toning may have made the graders assume it was dipped and retoned because Peace dollars don’t normally tone as much and that’s why they called it cleaned. It has rainbow toning that in hand is in between my old image and the Trueview and Peace dollars don’t usually tone with rainbow colors like that.

Mr_Spud

I went ahead and tweaked the Trueview to make the image a closer match to the coin in hand. The top image is the one I tweaked, the bottom is the untweaked Trueview. Basically it was overexposed. It’s pretty accurate now, except I couldn’t get the bluish part of rainbow on the right of the reverse to show up no matter how much I tweaked it. My old image magnified the color at the expense of the remaining luster. I can tell that I had taken the picture back then at an angle to bring out the colors better and then edited it to make it round again and also that I had used those old Reveal incandescent lights that bring out blues better. This was from when we all were first learning how to take pictures and post them on the forum, back then I was mimicking everything that Russ did and it was before Mark Goodman started teaching us all.

john_nyc1

Huh. Coin appears very nice to me based on these pics. Doesn't looked cleaned in any way. Examples like this always make me wonder if a TPG would ever actually disclose the thinking/reasons behind their grade? Consumer finance companies (credit cards, personal loans etc) are required to disclose reasons for any adverse action including the denial of credit, the lowering of a credit limit or derog closure of account-- and they need to be the ACTUAL reasons (see the FCRA). Would it be a viable business model for a TPG? Or just instructions on how to trick an honest, best effort to assign a grade in an obviously subjective space?

MsMorrisine

not cleaned

MFeld

@Mr_Spud said:

@PeakRarities said:
I highly doubt it’s because of the spot, but maybe the reverse color made them think it was an old cleaning and then stored in a Wayte Raymond album? When I see secondary color like that, I normally assume old cleaning,

.. I remember when David Hall used to post on the forums that he said all toned Peace Dollars are AT….

I’m nearly positive that his comment was something more like “Any Peace dollars with rainbow colors are AT.” I remember taking issue with that overly broad statement, way back then. Besides the fact that I disagreed with it, there are quite a few Peace dollars with some rainbow colors that have been straight graded by the very company David Hall was with at the time. And it’s highly doubtful that all of them are AT.

Mr_Spud

So maybe if I cracked it out and submitted it again I might get my coveted AU58 or a 55 then. It’s not worth the grading fees though, but if I can’t find anything worth submitting again this year and still have vouchers left I might do it just for an experiment. I let my Platinum membership auto renew again and they expire right after the on July 21 2025. I’m going through my raw coins right now seeing if I have anything worth submitting and so far nothing really is worthwhile to submit, so I might end up in the same situation as last time where I just end up submitting coins I like the looks of even though not really worth slabbing and I might try submitting this one again just for fun. If I do, I’ll post the results again for educational purposes. It might also be worth it just to see how Trueviews look a year later compared to the ones I received for this one in terms of the color tint and exposure

davewesen

sometimes it is just a little area, like between the rays below E.P

bsshog40

I never understood why toned morgans seem to be more accepted, and peace dollars are always questioned.

Mr_Spud

FYI - Here’s another image I just found from about 20 years ago of the same coin from after I had removed the black spot. Just throwing it in to this thread for educational purposes.

davewesen

Why did you lose most of the rim color from 12 to 6 o'clock after the EDTA? or is it just lighting washing out the toning?

I bought a group and this one was in it - PCGS detailed it with 'spot removed' - the top of shield on reverse has some scraping and spot residual.

Mr_Spud

@davewesen said:
Why did you lose most of the rim color from 12 to 6 o'clock after the EDTA? or is it just lighting washing out the toning?

It’s just the lighting.

But that’s interesting that they detailed the Kennedy and called out the spot removal.