Let's put an end to some "numismatic nonsense" once and for all!
Insider2
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What do you think?
IMHO, there is a ridiculous "Old Wives Tale" or "Crack-pot numismatic myth" that is heard every-so-often. It is said that you can circulate a "cleaned" coin enough that it will no longer appear to be cleaned. Does anyone have an estimate or wish to take a guess on how long it takes to carry a pocketful of cleaned coins around until they no longer appear cleaned. Anyone wish to take a guess on how long it would take to naturally circulate a Morgan dollar down to AU-55?
Many "myths" are based on a tiny bit of truth. This is one of them. That's because any type of cleaning (mechanical, chemical, or a combination) exists in degrees of surface impairment. Tiny amounts of cleaning can be made less apparent with toning or additional circulation. A long time southern dealer I knew had a pocketful of valuable coins each time I saw him at a show. Many were originally polished. I personally carried a "gem" BU white, silver Chinese counterfeit 16-D dime around in my pocket full of nickels for six months while trying to change its color and circulate it enough to make it look circulated and possibly genuine to trick my students. BIG WAST OF TIME and pocket fabric. The coin remained a bright MS w/cabinet friction! If it were a genuine common date dime, it went from a MS-67 to a "commercial" MS-62 (market acceptable AU w/rub).
Anyone have better results? Otherwise, let's agree to stop spreading numismatic NONSENSE!
Comments
Heck, I thought you were going to go on a net grading rant. How disappointing!
Smitten with DBLCs.
I attempted to "circulate" a few large cents that were in various states of "cleaned". Maybe copper isn't a great platform in the first place, but they mainly ended up a horrible "orange" color and the hairlines never went away. I suppose if I circulated them down to VG the results might have been better??? Who knows... yeah, big waste of time.
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I have always wondered if this process might work with a rock tumbler filled with old rags and maybe a few squirts of Jojoba oil (similar to Sebum secreted by human skin).
I actually bought a rock tumbler - rather, a low level vibrating ammunition cleaning machine to give it a try. I never did because I am too lazy, but maybe others could try it.
Wouldn't this speed up the circulating effect equal to carrying the coin in one's pocket? Seems like it would.
You could be the new "Niche" dealer for all of the lowball registry participants! LOL
I think there are two issues conflated here: color and wear.
Now, it'll take a while, but if you have a coin with "cleaned" surfaces that is XF and wore it down to VF, it probably won't look cleaned anymore. This is especially true if the "cleaning" were "abrasive" - see the other thread. That could take years, but I think it would work. I know a guy whose been carrying around an originally UNC Ike since 1971.
Color is possibly a different issue. But, again, I think it would take many years to get the color to change. But it does happen. We've all seen old copper that someone dipped re-tone over time.
Of course, we can also argue over whether intentionally carrying around a coin for years to hide a prior cleaning is "natural" or artificial".
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, evn when irrefutably accurate.
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I know someone who tried something similar - although not with the oil - and it didn't look "natural" when he was done. It looked polished.
This might be a case where very slow can't be accelerated.
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, evn when irrefutably accurate.
I’ll take a stab at this. My thoughts are that any coin that has been cleaned and shows in the fields will never ever go away. It’s likes joke to even think otherwise .
Wear from making a coin a pocket piece isn't quite the same as true circulation. In a pocket, a coin will be worn by other coins (and keys or whatever else is in your pocket), and rubbed by fabric, which may have a polishing effect. In real circulation, a coin gets wear like this, but is also subject to being rubbed by people's fingers, which deposits oil and dirt. It's that latter part that I think is required to give a coin the natural circulation color. You can wear a cleaned coin down to remove some of the hairlines, but without circulating it for real, I doubt it will look natural.
Be careful or I will post some "disclaimers & clarifications" from the copper grading guide that confirm my opinion about "Net" grading. Wink, wink.
Eventually, when I'm finished with my preparation, I expect that Dennis Loring and myself will have a published debate in both the Numismatist and Numismatic News on this subject.
Lincoln cents take 3 - 6 months to become natural looking again depending on WHAT they were cleaned with and the extent or amount of cleaning done (light vs heavy). The process I use is called the "back porch treatment". It involves setting the cent on a semi exposed surface after an acetone bath where some moisture from dew, rain, humidity, etc may come in contact and allows for rotating the cent weekly to even out the exposure. Many can never be returned to a natural patina because the cleaning agent refuses to breakdown.
WS
Agree: "...if you have a coin with "cleaned" surfaces that is XF and wore it down to VF, it probably won't look cleaned anymore"
LOL, of course it wouldn't!!!!!
Color is completely different, Chemical alteration can quickly color a coin and help hide moderate cleaning.
Note to Newbies: Adding toning to hide cleaning was the ONLY reason coins were toned back in the day when "White was Right" and everything was dipped.
Airplanenut has it. I've carried pocket pieces plenty....they look cleaned, nice and shiny.
The Peace Dollar in my pocket right now has a polished look. My theory is that the vast majority of wear happened in bags during transport between banks etc. I'll bet if you take a cleaned coin and roll it and toss it around in a bag of coins it will look more natural pretty quickly.
Collector, occasional seller
Years ago, I had to have the belt replaced on my Kenmore dryer drum. The repair guy found about 5 or 6 coins that would've been PERFECT P-01 candidates. I know that I never got rid of them, but still don't know what I did with them.
I knew it would happen.
I think it's mixed. A VG coin didn't spend that much time in bags. It would take forever for a coin to wear down to VG in a bag as they don't move that much within the bag. But you've got coins in pockets then going to leather purses then into bags, into drawers, into jars, etc. I imagine that variation in the exposure prevents the "polished look". It's equivalent to cycling from coarse grit to fine grit back to coarse grit back to fine grit, and so on and so on. Try that next time you are polishing something and see where you end up. It won't end up polished.
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, evn when irrefutably accurate.
add some mercury dimes with the pocket piece and then take it out two or three times a day and let your fingers give it a nice rub. Problem solved.
I have a few coins that had light hairlines. Took 4 or 5 years but I would put them in my pocket every time I got on the tractor to bush hog for 4 or 5 hours 3 times a year then let them sit on top of the cabinets in my kitchen turning them over every month in the mean time. A couple AU details graded AU and a Couple ended up 45! They turned out nice and for all intensive purposes are problem free now! Am I a doctor? Maybe, Maybe not. They all are nice and natural!
Edit to add...these were coins that had a light wipe(slight hairlines)...harshly cleaned coins will pretty much always be harshly cleaned coins!
>
I was fixing to say, if you have an old bag of silver coins you could put a handful of coins with the cleaned piece and put in a vibrating shell cleaner and it would dull down, people forget these circulated with other silver coins.
If you don't have junk coins you could always get some Silver Oxide powder and put it in a shell cleaner. Silver Oxide should be available in a chemical supply catalog.
Edited to fix what spell checker changed...
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No argument from me! Just sitting in my truck waiting for the working men to pressure up some new 10” cooler piping for a hydro-test. Living the dream!
I think if you find a one in POP Three coin and it is degrading, someone will try to restore it to its former glory. We have seen this with some real rarities. That does not mean it gets a MS or even a AU designation. Best you will have is a very valuable restored historic treasure and no one cares that it had a face lift for the most part. But when you have a Silver dollar 1900-present and it contains silver, you have a silver coin with silver value plus something else. Morgan, Peace and others I love to collect, do I care if it is cleaned? Not if it is near silver price or a rare date. So point here is be happy with what you collect but read and listen. learn and be wise on your purchases. Use a trusted source. And you dealers who try to put one over to pay the bills. NO soup for you!
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Many years ago I made the mistake of dipping a copper coin - the outcome was not good.
I set it on a small tree stump in the backyard - turning occasionally. Of course, it got sun, rain, etc.
After several weeks of this the color improved dramatically.
Not saying that coin experts would not have detected it, but it generally looked much better than it did right after my misguided treatment.
Good 'ole mother nature!
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...also known as coin doctor John Muir
The discussion is getting there..
No, simple pocket carrying and using fingers to rub will not rehabilitate a cleaned coin.. that will just polosh it more, and add marks, depending on what else is in pocket.
Now, if an oxide/sulfide and organic accumulation layer builds up slowly, along with the light handling, over time it can help a coin's appearance...
Think of the grey/black stuff on junk silver, and how it gets on your hands when you count them.
Liberty: Parent of Science & Industry
Well, so much for putting an end to anything...
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, evn when irrefutably accurate.
The problem is that you carried it only for a few months instead of a few decades.
Come back to us after you've done so for 50 years and report results
Minor Variety Trade dollar's with chop marks set:
More Than It's Chopped Up To Be
I remember back in the late 1980s purchasing an XF'ish Seated Dollar (from a large national Coin World seller). It arrived cleaned (as most of these coins were). I returned it and waited. Sure enough the exact same coin was returned to be albeit darker! I local dealer informed me cigar smoke had been used to age/darken this coin! Oh well.
peacockcoins
Depends on the cleaning, as others have undoubtedly said. Widespread wispy hairlines are cleaning on BU coins but not so out of place at AU, especially on gold. Sandpaper or Brillo pad cleaning is going to remain a problem all the way down to basal state.
""Let's put an end to some "numismatic nonsense" once and for all!""
I was 99.9% sure that this was going to be another CAC thread. 😉
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I clicked hoping to see finally the end of the cac. Chemical cleaning is fine if removing the taco bell nasty. Maybe next time. Semper Fi!
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Numismatic nonsense? You said you put a Chinese counterfeit in your pocket and now it's market acceptable?
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I learned by observation from a well seasoned dealer how to impart a natural circulated look to cleaned (silver or copper) coins with a simple method, which I’ve never attempted. jmlanzaf knows the individual too, who was a big player at one time.
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I've "worn" a lot of coins down to hide cleaning.
Usually it's not so much wear as it is thumbing and then storing in a hot "dirty" environment for a long time. It works best on copper and I never was able to restore harshly cleaned or polished coins because I lacked the patience. I just kept a big box of them on a furnace and dumped them out often removing coins that could pass and adding new ones that looked cleaned.
I did wear down a few pocket pieces but never more than a grade or two. Few of these were actually cleaned coins but I have no doubt that the same procedure would have "fixed" most cleaned coins that weren't chemically altered, polished, or whizzed. It's not unusual to find pitted coins in circulation that are no longer discolored (at least on the high spots) so it must happen "naturally" as well.
When I first started collecting, I bought the most beautifully toned Seated half. It had that darker, rich brown patina in the devices and on the edges while the higher points were a much lighter uniform light brown toning/silver.
Touched the coin one day and that lovely patina rubbed off like it was shoe polish. Underneath all that patina was a blast white, cleaned coin. I got taken on that one.
Hmmmm? I do? I'm not sure who you are referring to. JB?
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, evn when irrefutably accurate.
Ah yes... the age old 'cure the cleaning' topic..... the best method I have seen (and mentioned a couple of times above), is the vibratory case cleaner with walnut shell medium... then an aging process for some tarnish. It will work very well....Cheers, RickO
Does Deller's Darkener work on silver?
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"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value---zero."----Voltaire
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This AU-53 1908-S cent was given to me by my grammaw and I cleaned it HARSHLY with DRY baking soda probably every couple months or so when I was a kid. Every time it would go GREEN again, I'd hit it again with more baking soda.
Fast forward 20 years to when I started actually ...collecting... and sent it to ANACS.
Sure would like to know what it looked like when I got it. Nothing was done after the cleaning except neglect, It just aged some after the cleaning.
eek...this got a thread nuked this week...
But, it should...
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, evn when irrefutably accurate.
Is this somehow bring an end to this wives tale?
Actually, you can wear a coin's surfaces down enough to eradicate most imperfections. However, I'd rather have an Uncirculated large cent with major surface problems (and "Net graded" VF-Something
- couldn't resist 
) rather than one worn down to XF so the problems were obliterated.
Toning coins outdoors is exposing them to possible environmental damage. I don't recommend it for valuable coins. The sun (heat) and the environment (natural or otherwise) is your friend. The literature is filled with ways to make coins "passable" as natural.
That's crazy! I was given a BU 1916-D die-struck counterfeit dime that was better made/detailed than the usual crap.
If it were dated 1943, had a little circulation so much of its luster had worn away, it would probably go unnoticed in a bag of XF/AU junk silver! I wished to wear the coin down to XF with a circulated gray color so I could fool my students.