Rolls of Wheat Cents

RWW

My cousin passed-away just recently and I was given the task of going through his collection and selling it for his wife. One of the things he had was about 40 solid date rolls of Lincoln cents - not the paper kind of rolls but the type that are white hard plastic. The dates range from '53 and end in '58. I looked through several rolls just to gauge the state of things and found that most are red but a lot of them have black spots which, in my opinion, really distracts from the overall 'look' of the coins. I have a feeling that the rolls were kept in a damp place hence the spots.

Does anyone have any suggestions on anything that could be done to remove the spots or are they there to stay?

Bochiman

Those are most likley carbon spots.
From what I have read the last few years here, and trust the people saying it, carbon spots are pretty much there to stay. Any attempt to remove them will damage the coin (they are part of the coin now).

Elcontador

I have seen carbon removed from Liberty nickels. You have a whitish spot where a blackish spot was before. The majors will still slab these coins, but they are unattractive.

Copper is a more reactive metal than nickel. I think you really don't have any long term fixes for your problem. I had a roll of RD Unc. 49 S cents that I bought in a PVC plastic tube as a teenager. I got into running, uni, my job & forget about them for a few decades. One day, I removed the coins from the roll and virtually all of them were ruined by greenish PVC.

fc

you could check the roll of 1955 for doubled die obverses.
if you find one it may be your lucky day!

GrumpyEd

On the cents the spots can't easily be removed without ruining the coin. Best to leave them as they are.

RWW

Thanks for the replies.

Luckily, there doesn't appear any PVC on the cents...just the black spots on 25-33% of the items.

Here's another question though: he did have some pretty ugly medals (uniface strike) that represent a number of the early presidents. Each has a gold color for the central design over a silver color for the rest of the coin and are pretty amatuer-looking. Any ideas what these are? Each is housed in a soft-flip that appears to have caused PVC to leach onto each medal.

RWW

Are you kidding...checking for double-dies on the '55's is the first thing I did

It appears that several have the last 5 doubled...but that was as good as it got!

ChuckC

<< <i>Are you kidding...checking for double-dies on the '55's is the first thing I did

It appears that several have the last 5 doubled...but that was as good as it got! >>



Perhaps the "poor man's" doubled die 1955?