I am a metal detector hobbiest. I know a little about the coins that I find, but that does not go very far. The members of the Coin Talk Forum have been a valuable and much appreciated resource for me. Most recently I found a 1926S Mercury Dime. Zach24 was kind enough to point out that the "W" I found above and to the right of the date was the artist who designed the coin (Adolph A. Weinman). I thought this lettering was the mint mark. Once I found the actual mint mark, "S", I was able to identify my coin from the red book. Of course I saw that it was a limited minting with only 1.5 million coins produced. JeffB confirmed this by telling me that this coin was a semi-key date. Zach24 added that: "That could be a Choice-Fine at about 15, but it was obviously polished or cleaned.....It could still be worth in the $25-$35 range though." The coin is as I found it, but may well have been cleaned and/or polished by the previous owner. It was rather shallow at 1 to 2 inches which makes me suspect that it was a somewhat recent drop. I'd like to receive additional comments and possible speculation about the coin's worth. Thank you Zach24 and JeffB. Any additional comments would be greatly appreciated. Thanks again, everyone.
I would probably put it in the $20-$25 range. With cleaned coins (problem coins)...they are hard to price because most collectors don't want them. I personally don't purchase problems coins at any price with 2 exceptions: 1) as junk silver, or 2) if the coin is an extremely scarce variety; this coin doesn't fit either category In order to sell such a coin, they have to be extremely discounted. That said, I think it is a great metal detector find and I'm not trying to take anything away from that. But, I would probably put the value around $20 or so.
Thanks, Carmaro. Can you tell me what distiguishes it as a cleaned coin. Of course the scratches could be the result of cleaning. I guess in the long run, it doesn't matter. If it looks like a "cleaned" coin, for practical purposes, it is a cleaned coin.
The pattern of the abrasions is consistent with it having been harshly cleaned. As you said, if it looks harshly cleaned, it will be considered harshly cleaned.
