Feelings on improperly cleaned coins?

How does everyone here view improperly cleaned coins? For example, you would like to have a slabbed gold piece of some sort. I don't mean say, a 20-100 dollar range silver coin where you may as well get a nice uncleaned one. But say for a $10 gold eagle. The normal price is 600+. You find the same coin, same year for roughly half this price, in a slab from NGC and it states that it's been improperly cleaned? Would some people use that to their advantage and get a really nice coin that was improperly cleaned or would you rather get the 600+ just to say it hasn't been?


From my viewpoint, not having an unlimited budget, occasionally improperly cleaned coins seem like a pretty good deal. The coin still has the same gold content. It looks great. It's graded decent. But it was improperly cleaned.

I was wondering how much everybody frowns on that sort of thing. I'm just trying to figure out if it's really such a negative thing if you want a good deal on higher dollar coins.

 

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Most gold coins aren't particularly rare. If you concentrate on buying something in the AU to MS61 range, you can get a fairly nice problem-free coin for a reasonable premium over melt value. I'd avoid the problem coins.

 

I guess in short. Is there something wrong with collecting problem coins. NO. As long as you are paying the right money for them.

It all boils down to what you personaly like.

 

Vess:
First, you wouldn't get ont from NGC or PCGS saying cleaned. They body bag it.
NCS will slab it cleaned, as will ANACS and SEGS, noting cleaned.

If it is near melt, who cares, get it, but gold is at or near an all time high.

 

It matters what they mean by improperly cleaned. Not everyone has the same standards. Improperly cleaned to me means 'harsh' cleaning. By that I mean...if it looks like it has been cleaned with steel wool and I can visibly see surface marks from someone scrubbing it harshly, or if the coin has been cleaned with a harsh chemical which has effected the metals color or look, or if it was cleaned to have an inconsistent look.

If someone is looking through a microscope to find evidence of cleaning then I couldn't care less and I know I am not alone in that. For me it is eye appeal...by that I mean naked eye appeal. If you need to use magnification of the surface to prove it was cleaned, or if you have to carefully look for very subtle signs then it wasn't improperly cleaned in my book. I have posted cleaned coins that nobody noticed were cleaned, even here where people are manic about such things and seldom err on the side of caution when pronouncing a coin 'problematic' or fake and seldom hold their tongues when it comes to pointing stuff like this out.

If I say, about a coin I have cleaned, that I cleaned it but no one would know it...someone will always say 'an expert will know it if they can examine it in hand'...and again...if you have to be an expert, and you have to examine it closely and look for subtle signs that you have learned to look for. Then I am fine with it.

I am also fine with whose people who cut a coins value because someone dared to clean it. I get great rare coins with great eye appeal that way. I think that ALL my coins before a certain date have been cleaned at one time by others or lightly cleaned by me. A few probably improperly but they all look very nice, none have been altered. Fads come and go and taste are subjective and subject to change. So yes, I will buy cleaned coins, even some coins some might call improperly cleaned.

 

I collect almost exclusively copper pennies, Lincolns and Indians. I don't buy coins which have clearly been cleaned improperly for two main reasons: One, I don't like how they look. Two, the value of them is too unpredictable when you go to sell. You certainly aren't going to get any good price from a dealer on cleaned coins, and on an auction site, if it is advertised honestly, the final prices are simply all over the place. There are certainly collectors, buyers, bidders, out there who seem to not care, and I am often amazed at some prices I see coins bring on Ebay that I would never pay. However, I follow hundreds of pennies on Ebay, and mark my predicted price on the notes, and I have found my reasons for steering clear to be well founded.

 

To me it depends on the cleaning and the coin. I have some cleaned coins with great details, but I do not think they were harshly cleaned. Then again some of the coppers coins that get any type of cleaning look bad in my opinion. So it depends on the coin and the cleaning.

 

Not to be too nitpicky... but a $10 eagle contains almost half an ounce of gold. That's in the range of $450, so you won't find one these days for $300 no matter how beat down it is.

 

Harsh cleaning yes. You will be able to sell a properly cleaned coin for the coins worth without doubt. Some people misinterpret cleaned with harshly cleaned. I have yet to hear any valid reason for shunning a coin that has been simply cleaned or to call a cleaned coin a 'problem' coin. Just to clarify. But without doubt a HARSHLY cleaned coin is certainly best to avoid, but a harshly cleaned coin is easily detectable with the naked eye...thats why its called harsh. In the end, most likely, if anyone on the forum has a coin before a certain date, they have a cleaned coin...if not its probably jet black if its silver So for all the talk, most of us will have, and have bought, cleaned coins whether we know it or not. Which makes the rabid anti-cleaning this kinda funny.

 

Not all collectors are of the “it’s gotta’ be pristine" persuasion. Some of us prefer to collect what others find undesirable: chopmarked, countermarked, circulated and worn, toned and yes, even cleaned coins. If the cleaned coin pleases your eye and the price was acceptable to you, then it really doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks. You should always collect what you like. Just don’t expect the cleaned coin to heal itself over time and become more valuable. BTW, I think you’ll find that NCS doesn’t grade and slab coins, they are a conservation service and forward “preserved” coins on to NGC.

 

There is no healing needed, a properly cleaned coin is not damaged in any way, in fact an argument could be made that it has been healed (it has been made before). It should be no more or less than its relative grade. But I agree completely, collect what you want, dont let others dictate what you should or shouldnt buy. If it has great eye appeal, go for it.

 

I'm not so sure about that.

A circulated and dipped morgan dollar will retone over time, particularly if it is "helped" along a little bit by storing it in an environment appropriate to toning. Maybe an "expert" will detect it and maybe not. Another possibility that I've thought about and plan to try is to simply carry a cleaned coin around in my pocket, such as the dipped morgan. This is the sort of treatment the coin was designed for, and over a period of months, an AU-cleaned morgan should turn into a regular old XF morgan simply through wear and contact with other coins. It may be worth more money in the end.

It's something to think about.

 

I dont mind coins that have been cleaned as long as someone has not taken wire wool or a dremmel to them, again though this is just my opinion as I also like toned coins LOL

 

I agree with orc and carrying the coin around with you does help tone it though I wouldnt mix it with other coins...I have toned coins this way and I think regular contact with a warm hand will do the trick rather quickly.

 

inexperience here...

but for me, cleaned is tolerable on 'older' coins as long as not harsh. As noted, sometime in its long life, it most likely has been cleaned.

'Newer' coins, no. Too many to choose from to settle for less than stellar.

 

I recently purchased a cleaned 2.50 gold indian and I must say upon magnification I found it to be ms quality. I don't know why it was cleaned but had it not been I would not have been able to afford it. In this case I needed to complete my collection. I now have a coin that perhaps I can trade up for to get a graded coin.

 

It really depends. Alot of coins that are paticulary rare, especially die varieties, are only available problem coins, cleaned. If every very old gold coin (pre 1840) that hasn't been cleaned that was slabbed, there wouldn't be any coins left! There is what is known as "market acceptable" cleaning.

I've had 2 people so far (who hadn't seen the coin in hand) that my 1834 CAC/NGC AU53 quarter eagle has been cleaned. It is hard to find these as orgininal, even though I believe the coin is not cleaned, and apparently so did CAC, NGC and every dealer I showed it to in hand, sometimes on paticularlly rare coins you have to get a cleaned coin. There is a difference though between harshly cleaned coins, or slightly dipped cleaned coins, a coin can be properly cleaned.

If given the choice though I would save the money up for a non cleaned, even lower grade gold coin of the same type, its better than buying a problem coin.

 

To me the answer depends on whether the coin is being "collected" or "invested in".

To be "collectible", it only needs to be appropriately priced for the condition, appearance, and budget of the collector.

To be "investment grade", it needs to be totally problem free, at least under <10x magnification.

 

does anyone know how to retone a gold coin? when they are in ms condition they have more of a copper finish.