Hey all, I have a question I’ve had for a while. When ever I see trade dollars either at coin shop, for sale, or in friends collections they’re usually cleaned. It seems that they’re cleaned over any other coin type being the most common I come across. Is there a reason for this? I’ve wondered this for some time seeing them and thought I’d ask.
Some types do seem to be more frequently encountered cleaned. I'm not really sure why, but with silver dollars- especially Seated and Trade dollars- one does seem to encounter a lot more coins that were cleaned, polished, whizzed, etc. I suppose it might be because they've been popular collectibles for a long time, and old-time collectors were less fastidious about such things. Foreign collectors likewise. There are some places in the world where "shining up" a large silver coin is still not as taboo as it is with modern, slab-happy American collectors.
many year ago you could see dealer taking out their hanky ( handkerchief)to make a coin more shinny. And you can bet it wasn't very sanitary.
The thing about trade dollars that always bothered me was the straight grading when they have chop marks.
I'll bet they would've said they were more fastidious about "maintaining the condition" of their coins...
That would make sense, maybe whizzed coins was not like it was back then and people didn’t care about it as much?
I could see that the old man shining his coins before opening that day LOL and yea the chop marks and straight grading is weird, it should have its own category of grading.
I haven’t came across any fakes luckily. I hope! LOL. Are they made fairly well? I’ve been fooled by a Morgan a while back but picked up on what to look for quickly
