This conservation went really well. ICG did a great job saving the coin.

I bought the coin raw back in 1995 at auction from Bowers and M. as a 63.
I sent it to PCI shortly after that and it came back at 58. I was happy, it cost me $8 to have it in a nice holder.

Over the years the coin turned really ugly in the holder along with many other coins with the same history. I'll never understand why just these coins turned into problems.

Below are images showing the coins history. ICG was able to bring the coin back to life without removing all it's skin. I hope to get all the images in order.

 

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Wow, those earlier (?) pics it's like clouds come over and obscure the coin's appearance. They did a great job.

It's not even toning, it's clearly preventing you from seeing what's underneath.

Is it the metallic composition ? Maybe the holder ?

 

It’s the PCI holder. The toning from the holders was all over the place.

 

So something on a PCI (what's that stand for, not Paramount Coin, right ?) holder reacts with certain coins ?

I trust today's holders from the TPGs do not !!

 

That looks nice. What kind of witchcraft and sorcery do they use to restore?

 

Some PCI holders toned coins wild colors like these https://www.cointalk.com/threads/toning-in-slabs.409766/

Others turned out like Larry’s.

 

I always just assumed PCI accepted gassed coins and straight graded them. I guess that's a horribly wrong assumption?

 

In the early days of PCI, they used a red label for problem coins and green for coins that straight graded.
Over the years the company changed hands and standards, several times. I did not keep track of all the changes.

 

They will not share that information and for good reason. Each coin may need a different process or they may not wish to even work on a coin. That's the hard part to learn about conservation. Not every coin can be helped.

 

Photo-Certification Coin Institute. Began operations in 1986. It's been through a lot of generations of holders and at least six owners including one that made imitations of an earlier generation of holders from a time when the company had a good representation for accurate grading.

PCI was one of the early users of Photoslabs. After HALLMARK closed down PCI acquired to right to their "clipped corner" slabs. When PCI went under the first time it, and it's slabs, were purchased by David Lawrence and reborn as Dominion Grading Service. After Dominion closed down it was sold off and reborn as PCI again. This buyer was the one that redid the early PCI holder and later was sued for fraud over misrepresentation of grades. They had to divest themselves of the service and the new owner continued the PCI name.