what the heck? (Morgan dollar)

I watched various videos about how to dip:


So, is it being dried with a tissue? How long should it be air-dried before being flipped?

Would this be a good candidate for NGC conservation? Would it be body bagged because of the cleaning? But at least it would be cleaned better than I could.

If someone well-versed in dipping messed it up, I'd probably do more harm than good because I've never done it before and I don't know what I'm doing.

It would probably just make more sense to either send it off to NGC or toss it in the cull basket.

It was painful to watch TheCoinGeek dipping a nicely toned Morgan, in another video.

 

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Sheesh, both PCGS and NGC require that one become a member. NGC is cheaper, at $25.

So if I'm adding up correctly, 25 + 25 (conservation) + 40 (grading) + 8 (photography), plus what it takes to mail both ways, it makes more economic and effort sense just to write this coin off as a junk coin, and buy another one. It's surely more than the coin is worth.

I suppose it thus couldn't hurt to buy the dip, watch more how-to videos, and swab it onto affected areas. However it's not going to do anything about the raised gunk on the rims.

I like the PCGS photography service. I'm not crazy about their holders, however. I'm less crazy about the $69 membership.

 

If you dip it with intentions on having it graded, count on it being body bagged. I swear I can see two tiny holes at the marks to the right of the date. Have you taken it out of the flip yet to inspect the plastic surface for holes? Seems like an accelerated toning with less than desirable results.

Don't ruin the coin with ezest before figuring out what actually caused this. Unless you really want to get rid of those spots regardless of what the outcome will be. It's your coin for the time being but that coin will outlast all of us.

 

You might want to try ANACS or ask Insider and send to his company.

 

Just as a point of reference, this was a raw Canadian half dollar with a similar issue, submitted to ANACS in a batch of 16 along with conservation specified. At the time I submitted they were doing up to 20 coins with conservation a single fee. They indicated on the results that this coin had been chosen for conservation. I tried to capture the worst possible angle showing the spot. In hand it's really not that bad. They graded it MS63. My point is that ANACS conservation doesn't seem to improve something like this. I don't find yours to be all that objectionable, but Morgan collectors perhaps have higher standards.

 

Looks a lot like mine seems it's not an uncommon toneing pattern for this year.. something in the silver alloy I expect

 

Some Morgan collectors like toning, others, a small amount of toning. The OP sounds like they only like bright white, which is what some collectors like.

 

Is it a carbon spot?

 

Yes, I concur. Using a product which I don't know how to use and don't really want to use doesn't make much sense, especially since the dip residue might be causing the discoloration in the first place.

I took another look at the coin under magnification again and sure enough, people who are saying there are holes are correct. I spotted the discrepancies in the photograph but I chalked it up to my crappy photography. There are indeed holes at pretty much every point where there's some crappy toning. There's also a tiny hole or two under the date.

I really hate these staple flips. I should have just gotten the coin out right away and put it in a regular flip, only it's such a pain to remove these things and I didn't want to risk scratching it in the effort to get it out.

Ancient silver doesn't violently tone right away. Does this dip gunk cause this side effect?

Even though I don't have much interest in American coins, and it would cost as much as the coin's worth, as a respect to a historical artifact at some point in the near future I'll try and send it off to someone who can conserve it.

That will be my project for this week; to get the coin out of the crappy staple flip and into a regular flip.

Perhaps I should contact Insider, as suggested.

 

Not so. I prefer toning and am rather irked when ancients are cleaned to bright white. I wouldn't mind if the coin started to naturally tone. This discoloration looks different than toning on ancient silver.

Some collectors of ancients even start their bright white coins on the toning journey by sticking it on a sunny ledge and/or liver of sulfur. They usually end up with moderate rainbow toning, not this dark, rusty color.

The Morgan which vanished in the mail was highly toned. The photograph of the missing 1884 is much more commensurate to what 100+ year old silver should look like.

Freeing the coin from its tomb will allow me to examine the rims. From what I can tell there seems to be some kind of raised encrustation of the same rusty color spilling over the edges. The .dngs of the original from two months ago suggest those were already there, I just didn't notice them. It will at least be much less alarming if the 'raised' encrustations were just an optical illusion.



A photograph of the vanished coin does suggest that a similar discoloration was happening on the stars and around the E Pluribus legend. I'm guessing that quite a few years of residing in a coin cabinet caused this toning, not a couple of months of exposure.



I recently purchased a shipwreck coin. They at least had the sense not to clean it to bright white.

 

I've never found it to be that difficult. Carefully slide the tip of a pocket knife under each staple end and bend it vertical. Flip it over and use the knife tip to wiggle the staple out.

 

I just now freed the coin and with gloves transferred it to a standard flip. It looks less bad out of the staple flip and the 'raised' encrustations on the bevel seemed just to be an optical illusion caused by the staple flip.

There's less cause to be alarmed now. However the toning spots do look rather jarring in comparison to the blast white part.

Perhaps modern silver just tones differently than Roman/Greek silver. The coin in the recent 'did I get skunked' thread has similar coloration. The purity had dipped to around 90% at the time of Nero but their 10% additives were undoubtedly different to the 19th c. 10%. The dip residue might have just caused it to tone more rapidly.

 

Ancients are totally different than modern coins. The toning is much nicer.

 

I didn't get to report on account of the outage but when it was taken out and put in a flip, it looked a lot better. The thin film of the staple flip had made everything look worse.

I also discovered that the rusty colored toning/rusty-colored spots are really common on Morgans. One I looked for sale at had a big rusty-colored encrustation spot. Ancient silver usually doesn't do that kind of toning when out of the ground so I guess I got unduly alarmed.

One hopes the spots won't turn to that kind of rusty-colored, raised growth.

I'll check in on it from time to time. Perhaps it'll tone in the flip.