Whats up with this 1886 O Morgan? Cleaned dipped?

Spartcom5

Found this morgan for $50 I liked the holder but the coin has a grainy texture looking surface and the feathers are worn. What's up with this? Is this a dipped coin or harshly cleaned?

MarkInDavis

Polished - so harshly cleaned

MFeld

Perhaps cleaned with baking soda?

TomB

It almost looks like it has been acid-pickled.

MsMorrisine

i'm completely guessing acid because of the ragged surfaces

dcarr

None of the above.
The coin was very heavily wire-brushed (using a power tool of some sort).

The heavy brushing causes ripples and waves on the coin's surface. When the bristles pass over a letter (for example), they cause a trailing wave to form on the back side of the letter (in the direction the bristles were moving after passing over the letter).

You can see this in several places such as above the letters in STATES.

It looks like a lot of the lettering has the trailing wave in a radial direction (away from the center of the coin), which means that the wire brushing was basically a crude (and very harsh) form of "whizzing".

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FredWeinberg

‘Whizzed’

Cougar1978

Looks like a circ that was dipped

pcgsregistrycollector

Looks like it was heavily brushed/whizzed, then polished shortly after.

pcgsregistrycollector

You can tell by the pitting on the coin's surfaces.

PickinndGrinnin

What's that depression between the wing and 3. I call fake.

TomB

I don't think the coin was whizzed because of the uniform dimpling on the surfaces instead of a trailing wave pattern. I realize it isn't being submitted, but if it were sent to PCGS it would definitely at least receive an "Altered Surfaces" designation.

dcarr

@dcarr said:
None of the above.
The coin was very heavily wire-brushed (using a power tool of some sort).

The heavy brushing causes ripples and waves on the coin's surface. When the bristles pass over a letter (for example), they cause a trailing wave to form on the back side of the letter (in the direction the bristles were moving after passing over the letter).

You can see this in several places such as above the letters in STATES.

It looks like a lot of the lettering has the trailing wave in a radial direction (away from the center of the coin), which means that the wire brushing was basically a crude (and very harsh) form of "whizzing".

.

@pcgsregistrycollector said:
Looks like it was heavily brushed/whizzed, then polished shortly after.

.

Yes, it was likely tumble-burnished after the harsh wire treatment.
This type of tumble-burnishing is often done in bulk quantities for commercially-packaged retail sales.

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coinkat

Seems we can all agree it was destroyed…

gumby1234

Sandblasted? Whatever was done to it it has been ruined.