A dip gone bad

shylock

Lakesammman spotted this coin on Ebay recently, and now that a new image has turned up in Heritage's Long Beach Sig Sale our suspicions are confirmed. Not only did the dip not remove any of the spots but it clung to areas of the coin, turning it very funky. I owned it two years ago and it was one of my first experiments in digital imaging. At that time it was in a PCGS MS65 green holder. Someone's going to have to explain to me how this got regraded at MS65 by PCGS!

Before/After

Stuart

Someone sure ruined a really beautiful original looking 1859 Indian Cent. Too bad. This type of thing makes the remaining (surviving) natural coins worth a bit more...

It's also instructive to demonstrate the reduction in the amount of mint luster on the coin caused by the dipping.

kamehameha00

stujoe

Very sad. Why take a chance on ruining a coin like that? Oh, never mind...$$$$$$.

cherrypickincoin

I'm bothered that this coin even got regraded at the same level. It should have clearly been bodybagged. If I can tell that by looking at a scan then something is wrong at PCGS.

sinin1

I would guess that the dip was not neutralized but slowly turned ugly

It probably did not look the way it looks now when PCGS slabbed it


a grade guarantee coin of the near future?

shylock

It probably did not look the way it looks now when PCGS slabbed it

Good point Sinin1, I didn't consider that but I bet you're right.

shylock

Manofcoins -- I sold it thru Heritage for $2100 over a year ago, a little more than I paid for it. The flecks keep it from being a solid 65, even with the nice strike. Nowadays decent examples are selling for 3K+. Perhaps someone will buy this one cheap and give NCS a shot.

TheShaman10

Man, what a shame.

Cam40

hmmm ,Why someone felt the need to curate the coin in the first place is beyond me.
Oh well.

coinkat

The pictures speak for themselves.

legacycoin

That is truely disgusting. There was absoultely no reason to dip that coin.....

291fifth

<< <i>Manofcoins -- I sold it thru Heritage for $2100 over a year ago, a little more than I paid for it. The flecks keep it from being a solid 65, even with the nice strike. Nowadays decent examples are selling for 3K+. Perhaps someone will buy this one cheap and give NCS a shot. >>



This is an example of a nice original coin that has been ruined. It will probably end up at NCS but no matter what they do it will never be original again. I become convinced more every day that truly original coins from the early series are going to have their day in the not too distant future. They are getting very hard to find!

Elcontador

I don't know whether to vomit or ****. That used to be a nice coin, Paul. A few small flecks you can do without, but they don't preclude an MS 65 grade. This coin should be bagged. Ira Stein once told me that it can take a month or two for copper to go bad & other copper guys have confirmed this.

PCGS should cut a check for this coin & get it off the market.

roadrunner

That coin won't cross at NGC...or ANACS, ICG for that matter

roadrunner

johnk

MacCoin

too bad that coin is a little pricey to be bathing. it looked pretty nice before it was cleaned

tjkillian

Shylock - I know that you are the expert in tracking Indians, but just for my sanity sake, how do you know that this is the same coin? The first one looks so nice as to wonder why some idiot would even consider dipping such a beautiful coin.
Sorry if this is an affront to your expertise.
Tom

Skipper53

If I'd ever been tempted to dip a coin before, this has convinced me to
LEAVE WELL ENOUGH ALONE !

BigE

They look like two diffferent coins to me, perhaps they are-------------BigE

Nic

Same coin though now worth less. K

toothpuller

I love the cataloguer's description:

"A radiant example with excellent sharpness on the headdress and blushes of golden-orange patina surrounding the portrait and over the entire reverse. Important one-year type and an issue that is quite elusive any finer."

What a crock.

Tom look at the small spots/marks directly in front on the eye, nose, and between the E and D of UNITED. They line up perfectly on both coins.

STEWARTBLAYNUMIS

The original color of an 1859 Indian cent should look close to the color of jnickel and not copper.After all there is 88% nickel and 12% copper.This coin was dipped before Shylock bought the coin.

Stewart

STEWARTBLAYNUMIS

Definitely Sloppy work !!!!

stewart

michael

wow paula great thread
i was going to post that the coin got dipped and when this coin was reholdered/regraded it had not turned yet and probably turned aftee the coin was reholdered/regraded

i am surprised this coin would be offered on heritage and not sent in for the guarantee

does heritage think this coin will sell?? and even if so why would they put their reputation at risk by offering a no brainer dipped coin gone bad in the holder??

and then photograph it as such??

also for me and i think mostly anyone these two photos you posted are the same coins and it is like a no brainer to me that they are the same coins

again thanks paul for this really informative astute thread



it is curious that someone said on here the coin was dipped before it got into the green holder?
hmmmmmmmmmmmm

i just do not know i think most likely after

but if so why would someone try to remove fly specks with a quick dip especially so with a nice looking coin like this which i think it is another no brainer that the flecks would not go away by a simple dip

and most likely even ruin/change the color of the coin??

again a really interesting informative thread


michael

Newmismatist

<< <i>The original color of an 1859 Indian cent should look close to the color of jnickel and not copper.After all there is 88% nickel and 12% copper.This coin was dipped before Shylock bought the coin. >>



Stewart - I think that should be 88% Copper & 12% Nickel - see any version of the Red Book - Rick Kay recently sent several 1858 patterns for SEM-EDX testing & they came back approx 89 CU / 11% NI which is essentially the standard C-N alloy used between 1856 & 1864 on FE & IHC pennies - There are several patterns during this period that are 75% CU & 25% NI which is the standard compostion of 3CN Nickels, Shield Nickels, Liberty Nickels & Jefferson Nickels (except the wartime issues). The Nickel Alloy patterns during this period (1858-1864) are as follows: 1856 Judd-183 (Pollack-214 & a variation listed as Pollack-217), 1858 Judd-217a (Pollack-240 - same design as Judd-193), 1858 Judd-218a (Pollack-232 - same design as Judd-198), 1858 Judd-207a (Pollack-244 - same design as Judd-206). THere are also a couple of pure Nickel FE patterns (1856 Pollack-208 & Pollack-241, neither listed in Judd, Pollack says Unique?). Per Pollack, quoting the Coinage Act of February 21, 1857, Section 4: "And be it enacted, from and after the passage of this act . . . [weight verbiage omitted] . . . and the cent shall be composed of eighty-eight percentum of copper and twelve percentum of Nickel"

shylock

Stewart - (I should have mentioned this at the top) The original coin did not look gold the way it does in my image, it had an original CN "white" look. This was one of the first pics I took with my camera and the color balance and lighting was way off. I had to brighten the image considerably for the benifit of this post so you could see all fly specs.

Tom - besides all the spots that match up, there's even a cud at 7 o'clock on the obverse rim on both coins. This coin's loaded with pedigree marks, most of which the dippee was trying to remove to double his money.

nwcs

The original is definitely better. I think dipping silver or gold, if done correctly and for the benefit of the coin, is OK. But I don't see any need or benefit to dipping copper and only disaster for it. Shame that the coin had to suffer.

1jester

Well, it USED to be a beautiful coin.

sinin1

shylock - in the first post you did not mention you had previously owned it






that must hurt - like selling an original '59 Chevy and having some kid total it out in the next week

IndianHeadMan

A sad day for Indian head lovers.

drainbamage

I am against cleaning in general unless absloutely necessary and I would never touch a copper coin at all. I would love to see that coin again in a few years..... even if they used high quality chemicals on it, that stuff will just keep eating away at the surface of the coin.... in a few years it will look ten times worse. Having leftover chemicals on the coin is the only way that it looked fine at PCGS and it is going to hell now.

Only thing worse I can think of is when I met a guy that cleaned his copper pennies with Texas Pete Hot Sauce and Brasso.... I told the idiot he should just use battery acid and sandpaper so he could destroy them faster!!!!!

NewmisED

Wondering how that coin got slabbed as PCGS MS-65 after the dip?????

I would bet money that a big dealer and regular submitter to PCGS sent this coin in. If I submitted it I would get a BB.

NewmisED

Hey, can we find out who dipped this coin? Shouldn't be too hard. Let's just see who consigned the coin. I want to get a hold of the dipper and dip that pinhead in a 55 gallon drum of MS-70. Scum ball.

Where's the "coin doctor posse" when you need them. It was probably someone on the posse who dipped this coin!

Nysoto

Acid dipping is a form of "acceptable cleaning" for the grading services. Coins will continue to be ruined by dipping as long as there are no disincentives to dip coins in acid, such as body-bagging dipped coins or labeling them as dipped with a net grade.

greghansen

Oh man, does that suck 7 ways to Sunday! Thank you for posting the images. That is exhibit #1 for the case of 'Why coins should be left alone'!

Lakesammman

Hey, can we find out who dipped this coin? Shouldn't be too hard. Let's just see who consigned the coin. I want to get a hold of the dipper and dip that pinhead in a 55 gallon drum of MS-70. Scum ball.

Ditto.

Great sluething, Shylock.

dorkkarl

that coin SUCKS (now). i really despise jerk-offs who just can't keep their grimy hands off of perfectly beautiful coin. why don't they go dip there face in the toilet & see how they like it.

DIPPING IS DOCTORING, & coin doctors SUCK!

K S

ccrdragon

Thanks for pointing this out - I just blew chunks on my keyboard

Anybody who would take a beautiful original IHC and treat it like that deserves no mercy from the real collectors!!!

Elcontador

As Michael said, the coin was probably resubmitted right after the dip, before the chemicals had adequate time to interact and make that coin look like barf-bag material. Only someone with a negative IQ would try to dip copper, unless the person was trying to perpetrate fraud on an unknowing buyer.TRY TO BUY COPPER IN AN OLDER HOLDER IF POSSIBLE & YOU WON'T HAVE TO DEAL WITH THIS ****.

jeffnpcb

Send it back to PCGS!! Let them deal with the problem and correct it!

toothpuller

An unscrupulous person, if they know what they are doing, can get away with dipping a copper-nickel as it can look good at least for a while. Obviously they were hoping to upgrade the coin to a 66. This makes me wonder about the history of the three current generation MS66 copper-nickels that are in the same auction. Would have a hard time bidding on those now if I was so inclined to previously.

dorkkarl

believe it or not, i thought about this coin for a long time last night at home, & it still bugs the he11 out of me that some freaking moron coin-doctor s.o.b can't keep his creepy freakin mitts off of coins. in fact, this is why i brought up the infamous coin-doctor posse in another thread yesterday.

you'll remember that members of said posse didn't agree that dipping coins equates to doctoring. this thread shows why i totally disagree.

broils the he11 out of me that there are so many peanut-brained jerks whose only objective is to think they can squeeze that extra 50 cents out of a coin if they can just dip it ONE MORE TIME. eerrhghghghgfhhghghh!!!

K S

lordmarcovan

islemangu

TTT....calling the posse...even crappy ineffective damaging dipping is OK at pcgs for the same 65

I cant really see that much difference from the AT grim...why...why..why pcgs didnt you punish with even a 64...like K6Az and dragons overgraded CCs gem I strongly suggest you get this damaging stuff off the market, reslab and dock your graders paychecks to let them know you are serious....this inconsistant crap must stop!!

dorkkarl

ttt

dorkkarl

ttt

jacktheknife

That should be a crime! Wait, IT IS A CRIME!!!!!

laurentyvan

Perhaps not my place to say, but the end of the left ribbon end on the reverse seems to line up differently with the denticles from one picture to the next. Strictly an uninformed opinion

jonesy

Having had a Lincoln 1909VDB rejected because of possible artificial color, this is sad. Who out there can submit to PCGS and get anything graded PM me. This is SAD!!! My coin did not have artificial color!!! A 46D lincoln bagged as wiped came from an original roll I have had for 22 years. My coins are BodyBagged and this piece of Chit is graded????

relayer

If that's a 65, I've got plenty of 80's!