Besides the obvious, how does PCGS tell...

Prometheus183

when a coin has been cleaned? I mean, other than lack of luster, etc., do they use chemical analysis of some sort to determine if a coin has been dipped in nasty stuff, or is it sheere years of experience and a highly trained eye?

coppercoins

no, because cleaned coins are obvious by nature. There is no "besides the obvious".

cladking

It doesn't really matter if a coin has been cleaned or not. If it looks cleaned it is, and if it doesn't it's not.

LincolnCentMan

Check out invoice 9015759.

I got the invoice back on friday. The 44-D was the nicest coin out of a KILLER 1944-D origional roll that I'd bought about two years ago. I kept the nicest coin (that one) and sold the rest DIRT CHEAP to a friend. The only thing about the roll was that the paper had turned all the rims (Rims only, nothing had drifted onto the fields) a brass looking color. That was the one coin out of the whole submission that they bagged. It was probably the second/third nicest coin in the submission (to the 36-P... debatable on the 55-D). They bagged it for cleaning. The rims alone should have been enough to show them the coin was origional.

David

kranky

coppercoins and cladking are both right. In reality, a coin that is called "cleaned" really means "something was done to this coin which made it have the look that we describe as cleaned". It doesn't mean anyone can conclusively tell.

It all comes down to how it looks. If someone cleans a coin, but it doesn't look like it, no one is going to call it cleaned.