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PCGS slab with foreign debris on coin?
mharris
Posts: 20 ✭✭
I made my first purchase at GreatCollections last week with a nicely toned Roosevelt dime in PCGS MS66. A nice a simple coin. I received it in the mail and to my surprise, what appeared to be a small dark tone patch on the rim at IGWT looks like foreign debris, gunk, shmutz, crap. The picture is not great, it in-hand this looks to be organic and fibrous matter that is covering over the top of the coins outer edge and between the coin and the plastic. It has perhaps toned the coin a little bit, but it is not in and of itself a toning spot. Did a grader drop some of their lunch in there? Is this something others have seen?
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It's probably just a little bit of shmutz on the coin that was overlooked and has been on there a very long time before the coin started toning. Looks like there was a smaller dot of it under the S too that fell off before it was slabbed or after and it's loose in the slab. See how there is no toning under the piece that fell off.
Slabs are commonly found with debris. I'm sure they will fix it. This even looks like it may be from the mint!
Depending upon the date of the dime, this might be debris left over from the original US Mint Set cardboard and paper packaging that these coins were sold within. As for myself, I had an MS68FB Mercury dime (when PCGS rarely gave out the grade) come back with a fairly decent sized piece of bread encapsulated against the obverse of the coin.
In honor of the memory of Cpl. Michael E. Thompson
Thanks for the comments! All of those sound totally plausible. The removed spot below the "s" is a good clue. Well at least it's not a piece of bread in a 68FB!!
I think I may crack it out, acetone the spot, and put it in an album.
Don't think acetone will completely remove what has happened to the surface under the debris.
If acetone removes the 'shmutz', you may not like the spot it leaves... such as the spot under the S, only larger. Then you may be forced to go to a dip that will likely also remove the tarnish.... Travel this road with care... Cheers, RickO
PCGS conservationists have different sets of chemicals and processes for Hellman's Mayonnaise and Miracle Whip, Grey Poupon and Gulden's mustard. Wonder Bread has no organic components, but different effects when in slabs with copper or silver. The Sniffer technology has many applications.
Two recorded instances where Dorito dust from the PCGS lunch room was mistaken for iodine.
Maybe 2001: I pick off the then-owner of the Parsippany show on a 1927-D 10c NGC MS66FB with a hair trapped from 7:00-11:00 on the obverse. I run it to NGC and get a bemused smile and a reference to Clarence Thomas from JA when he hands it back to me reholdered about 30 minutes later.
Later that week I offer it to Bill Dominick (also NNJ); he'd seen it at the same show and thought it was a hairline) for $2500 more with a guarantee it will cross. He passes. I cross it. I re-offer. He re-passes. When offered it thru another dealer, his current "big customer" tells my other guy Bill has called ahead to kill the deal. I was not surprised at his recent conviction.
PCGS 1927-D 10c MS66FB pop 3? Sold in another 10 days.
I tried to date every brunette in the NGC slabbing room. I was slapped by two guys and a blonde and my coins were under-graded for at least a month.
El Cucaracha rules
So, then, it is composed of what? Heavy metals? Noble gases? Ancient Chinese secret?