How long after a coin has been cleaned does it become certifiable?

relayer

Certain classic series have numerous PCGS slabbed coins that have been cleaned at one point in time.

If a coin was cleaned 20 years ago, is it banned from PCGS? How about 50 years ago?

Placid

I think it depends more how common or rare a coin is than time.
A 1815 half will probably get slabbed even though it's been cleaned.
A 1830 half will probably get a bodybag.

tjkillian

What I think is the rarer the coin, the more lenient PCGS becomes. Look at the 1804 silver dollar or the 1933 Double Eagle, or my 1938-D Buffalo nickel. As long as only the clueless would not recognize the cleaning, PCGS will slab it.

Tom

NumisEd

Here's the time conversion chart for cleaned coins getting slabbed:

ACG: 32 seconds after cleaning
ANACS: 5 days
SEGS: Anytime, but it will always be an "old cleaning" as stated on the slab
NGC: 1 year
PCGS: 2 years

If you are in the PNG, divide the above numbers by 2 to arrive at the probable time your cleaned coin can be slabbed.

Singapore

I thought it was the nature of the cleaning, not the elapsed time that mattered.

A lightly cleaned (lets say 'curated') piece can be slabbed that same afternoon, while a coin whizzed with one of those fuzzy red and black motorized shoe-polishers will never be slabbed - but with two caveats:

1) Even some poorly cleaned coin can eventually re-tone and become decent enough in appearance to be 'slabbable' and in a lot of cases older, cleaned coins are slabbed, and

2) I agree with Killian, the rarity of the coin and the grade or lenience about cleaning are correlated.

BigD5

<< <i>If you are in the PNG, divide the above numbers by 2 to arrive at the probable time your cleaned coin can be slabbed. >>



I nominate that statement as the best of 2003. I know it's early, but that's good.

Depends on the coin and the type of cleaning. Seated dollars can/will get slabbed with a "light" cleaning. You could go on and on. Rarity and age make the biggest difference. Seems like the grading, in general, follows the same rule.

shirohniichan

Don't cleaned silver coins make their way into slabs more than copper or gold? Gold doesn't retone and copper looks screwed up for decades to come (unless operated on by a coin doctor).

PhillyJoe

Would it make sense to send a cleaned coin to ANACS for slabbing then PCGS or NGC for a cross? Would this help the chances of the other services slabbing it or don't they care?

Joe

egsantos

How about "professional cleaning"?

Edson

danglen

32 Seconds?

Do you think ACG would wait THAT long to slab a coin after cleaning?

cointagious

<< <i>Do you think ACG would wait THAT long to slab a coin after cleaning? >>



that includes the dry time.




<< <i>Would it make sense to send a cleaned coin to ANACS for slabbing then PCGS or NGC for a cross? Would this help the chances of the other services slabbing it or don't they care? >>



i search out litely cleaned coins in anacs holders, crack them out, and have them holdered by ngc with a success rate above 90%.

barberlover

Yuk, i thought the major services refuse to grade "cleaned" coins. If a properly dipped coin can retain it's original luster, thats why the services now grade them, but don't cleaned coins loose alot more in the cleaning process then dipped coins do ?

Draco

Maybe it's my dislike for toning (of any kind) speaking, but I don't see anything wrong with cleaning provided that you don't cause damage by using something abrasive and don't use a cleaning product that actually removes the surface of the coin (if it can be helped. . if not, I suppose you risk it graded as AU). If a coin is REALLY bad, I for one wouldn't buy it anyway. I've seen plenty of slabbed coins with high MS and PR grades that I wouldn't touch for any price. One mistake some people make when trying to remove common tarnish from a coin is using a product like TarnX. When you remove the silver sulfide (sulfate?), your removing part of the coins surface. Why not chemically revert it? Some of the latest jewelry cleaning products involve chemically removing the sulfur and allowing it to bond to something else. I believe most of them use common baking soda, heat and aluminum as the bonding agent. Doing it this way takes a lot of time, but I think it's worth it if you want to preserve the coin. I'm certainly no expert, but I'm sure that there are ways to remove many of the other contaminates that screw up a coins appearance. Of course, there are some coins that are just to valuable to touch. I have quite a few in my colleciton like that and it takes a lot of effort to keep me from cleaning them.

geb209

In theory, PCGS doesn't grade harshly cleaned coins. In practice, they do it all the time for those rare 19th century coins. I'm in a dispute with them right now over the issue.

DCAMFranklin

That would depend on how much you have spent this year on grading fees.

Conder101

If done repeatedly your baking soda and aluminum method will have the same result as the dipping method. All you have done is replaced an acid solution with a base solution. Both are corrosive. The base solution may be less so, thus the slower reaction time, but it is still corrisive. Also as the sulfur is oxidized some of the silver will be lost into the solution in ion form just as with dipping. Finally the repeated tarnishing of the surface rearrange the physical atomic structure of the surface and that repeated disruption will eventually result in a loss of luster.

NumisEd

32 seconds? Do you think Accuturd would wait THAT long to slab a coin after cleaning?

Danglen, how dare you challenge the accuracy of my indepth numismatic research?! Do you think that I provide my facts and figures in a wanton manner? It took me 2 years of research to compile data for the "time table for slabbing cleaned coins".

The Accuslop figure is a real number. Here's the story: Accucrap was setup at a show in the Midwest. I approached their table, which had a large glass partition with a sign that read "Do Not Disturb The Grader" (that part is really true!). I figured that he was disturbed enough, so I took heed of the warning and went to the neighboring booth, which was a coin supply dealer. They were having a blow-out sale on cleaning supplies, so I loaded up!

Next, I went back to the Accucrack table and found an open area where I was able to establish a mobile coin currating laboratory. No sooner than I removed my first heavily dipped, Brasso-enhanced, artificially toned Franklin half, I was asked by the grader if I had any coins that needed to be slabbed. I handed the dripping wet Franklin to the grader. This is where it gets ugly. This guy became irrate, stating that Accujunk's strict policy to not grade any coin that had been cleaned less than 32 seconds ago was being violated. I was then told that the owner of Accusleez carries bail money in his front pocket at all times for situations such as this. Before he could even finish that last sentence, we crossed the 33 second mark and the grader became very calm and said, "do you want the 1 hour service or the 2 hour ecomony service?". This story has a happy ending: my Franlkin came back PF-70 Ultra D-Cam!


So, Danglen, please do not challenge the accuracy of my research in the future.

jdimmick

With PCGS and NGC it comes down to the marketability of the coins. That is why your rarer pieces are more likely to get holdered with light evidence of cleaning vs typical date specimens.

Lets take a few examples such as 16 SLQ are seen quite frequently with light cleaning, even on lower grade specimens, but because the coin is so marketable, even with evidence of light cleaning, the grading services are more leanient. Now take the same coin say a 1921 little tough but not as rare and in as much demand in all grades and will most likely get bagged.

Same scenario with the 1815 bust half example that someone mentioned?

Although, from my experience, this usually holds true with silver and/or gold coins and not so much with the copper pieces, due to reactivness of the copper metal.

But in older copper like large cents, you will see similar grading vs bodybagging based on the coin rarityand marketability. A little more leaninecy on surface marks and conditions on say a Chain cent vs a 1796 bust?

NumisEd

but because the coin is so marketable, even with evidence of light cleaning, the grading services are more leanient

The problem with that is perhaps not everyone knows this fact. Imagine a collector who purchased every SLQ he needed via the internet and all of the coins were in PCGS slabs. Every coin is nice and originally toned, all grading VF-AU. Then the collector finally makes his kid drop out of college for just one semester so that he/she can buy the 1916 SLQ. A cleaned VF shows up. The 1916 sticks out like a sore thumb because it's not original. Furthermore, the coin would probably be valued as a F or VG when selling back to a PCGS dealer, because the coin has been cleaned. I think ALL grading companies are hurting our hobby.

WANNABEDEALER

It all depends on who did the cleaning er conservation. The gold horde from the Brother Jonathan was conserved and was graded. NGC has a conservation service as well. But to me chemical interaction with coins used to be called cleaning, and both services used to bodybag them for that reason.

barberlover

isn't it funny howcleaning or dipping of a coin is called "conserving"