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Straightening out bent coins?
puffer
Posts: 535
I have seen a few coins come back from grading as "bent", especially early coinage, not sure why that is. I had a Bust gold coin once that was certified by PCGS but came back from the other main service "bent". The dealer I bought it from said he could straighten it out sandwiched between plexiglass in a vice--hopefully the bend would come out but no guarantee either way. Has anyone had luck getting bends out of various coins and is there a difference in success rates with gold, vs. silver vs. copper/bronze etc.?
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but it didn't take but a few raps to get the job done with no apparent damage....
bob
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Michael Kittle Rare Coins --- 1908-S Indian Head Cent Grading Set --- No. 1 1909 Mint Set --- Kittlecoins on Facebook --- Long Beach Table 700
I have a 1892-CC Morgan that came back VF details in a NGC holder and I couldn't tell it was bent...so I've been wondering the best way to crack it out and try to "fix" it. I couldn't tell and in the holder it looks straight as well. No rim dings, or anything visible I can see going on. Its late, so I'll post some pics of it tomorrow. It can go from a $175 coin to a $300 pretty easily.
<< <i>A wooden mallet and heavy leather work gloves worked for me on a trime. Never tried on anything else >>
I too once straightened a trime and a half dime or two by sandwiching the coin between two blocks of wood and tapping with a hammer (with the coin also inside some cardboard or cloth). We detectorists often find bent coins. The first Seated half dime I dug (an 1854) was bent almost double and I mistook it for a piece of pulltab tongue when it first came out of the ground. I was able to straighten it pretty well using the method mentioned, though there were still some creases left.
When I went digging in England, a lot of the medieval hammered silver my dig partners found were bent double ("tacoed", they call it, because of the resemblance to a taco shell). The detector club has a guy (a jeweler, I think) who specializes in straightening these "tacoed" coins. I'm sure he uses some kind of heat annealing, but he gets good results. You have to be really careful with a thousand-year-old hammered silver coin that's been in the ground for centuries, because they will break right in two if one isn't careful. That is something to bear in mind with the more severely bent thin US coins like trimes and half dimes, probably.
I'm sure the composition of the metal makes a difference. I would imagine gold to be more pliable than copper or silver. Copper is a soft metal, but may become brittle, as mentioned. I dunno. Never really tried straightening anything but the odd small silver coin or two.
Collector since 1976. On the CU forums here since 2001.