Why the hairlines??

20centman

Lately I've seen many, many uncirculated better and key date Morgan dollars
with light hairlining. I would appreciate opinions as to what is going on here.

I understand in the quest for "white coins" many Morgans are being cleaned etc.
But why do these cleanings involve abrasives that cause these light hairlines?
Why not use Q-tips with diluted dip that can often eliminate unattractive toning / spots etc and
will leave the surfaces looking virtually original.

And I guess what I really don't understand is why I see so many Morgans that at
one time would have graded very high-end uncirculated being reduced to MS 61 and MS 62
(net graded by PCGS) due to abrasive cleaning and attendant light hairlining. When this happens
to a key date Morgan, thousands of dollars of value go up in smoke.

Are these coin enhancers / destroyers so ignorant and / or do they feel that potential buyers of these $1000.+
Morgans are ignorant enough to buy one of these disastrously enhanced / cleaned Morgans?

Why not use subtle / gentle cleaning methods? It all seems like a waste of good Morgans.

kranky

It's possible that the cleaning was done long ago, before most people cared about hairlines. Also, there are times when a knowledgeable collector passes on and the person who inherits the coins thinks they ought to be "nice and shiny" in order to sell them.

An ANACS grader had an article in CW recently and said they received an Indian Head cent collection for grading, and it was clear that just before sending them in someone had abrasively cleaned each and every one. He felt it cost the owner about $10,000 in value!

Probably most of the people doing the cleaning are ignorant of the impact on value.

drainbamage

Cleaning, unless it is a very special reason, is almost always bad. But every detergent known to man has been used on metal. Classic coin cleaners that were used by people were Baking Soda, Brasso, Ajax..... Almost anything that you could scrub it with. But these scratches and hairlines are from chemical means.

When a coin is made, it is not always made perfect anyhow. Especially when you are speaking of coins from the 1800's. They were made for MONEY.... not to be a collectable. So perfection was not exactly at the top of their list. Just like any other job in this world, they was just looking forward to quitting time and payday.

20centman

This light hairlining is not similar to the heavy duty whizzing of the Seventies or
the highly abrasive cleaning of totally ignorant inheritors in recent years.
Rather it is a poor attempt to slightly enhance and increase the value of these Morgans
by people that one would think would know better.

I guess the main reason I'm seeing so many of these hairlined Morgans lately is the
unfortunate fact that these are the kind of problem coins that seem to permeate the market
now-a-days.

dorkkarl

contrary to popular (& paranoid) opinion, "hairlines" does NOT automatically equate to "cleaning". there are countless other ways a coin can acquire hairlines, w/ the most obvious from being in say a dansco album (slide marks).

a coin can easily get hairlines just from being in your pocket. doesn't mean it was cleaned, just that it incidentally picked up hairlines!

of course, a myriad of hairlines MAY be an obvious evidence of cleaning, but again "hairlines" does NOT automatically equate to "cleaning"

K S