What's the Dumbest Thing You Ever Did to a Coin

Since I feel stupid this morning I may as well mention one of the dumbest things I ever did to a coin(s).

My interest in coins began in the mid to late 1960's. That's when I started to collect Lincoln cents and look for different dates. Around that time my parents gave me 5 Peace dollars that my god parents gave at my baptism. My parents held on to them until they thought I was responsible enough to have them. To make a long story short I thought that I had a brilliant plan to make them look shiny again. So, I used the eraser on my pencil to rub off the toning. The best date in the group was a 1928. As I became more educated I realized what I had done.

Yes, I still have them.

 

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I feel your pain. I was the same as a youngster. Had a dozen or so holes filled in a Lincoln Whitman book and did the exact same thing as you did. Took my pencil eraser and made them all nice and shiny pink…… Probably a good thing that I didn’t stop to think that an eraser would impart the same (damaged) shiny surface to my other coins.

 

bought it.

 

Possibly better than "sold it".

 

Found a 1795 Large Cent Metal Detecting and sold it .

 

No, I have never regretted selling a coin since any that I did sell someone else wanted it more than I did.

 

Another dumb thin I did was show my coins to one of my cousins. Back in the early 70's I would by a couple Canadian proof sets and proof dollars. The proof dollars were in nice little cases but the dollars themselves were set inside an open plastic holder. My cousin opened the case containing one of the silver proof dollars and proceeded to use his thumbs to press the coin back into its holder. Needless to say, the coin has ugly fingerprint toning on it 49 years later.

 

I tried to tone a coin to hide some hairlines.

I took a gem looking, fully lustrous 1926 Sesqui 50c and put it on a glass dish surrounded by Sulfur powder inside my oven. The only heat came from the pilot light. Unfortunately, I forgot about the experiment. Over the months, I used the broiler half twice to broil steaks. One day, I opened the oven part and I had a dull gray, silvery worthless coin.

I should have put a note on the oven and checked the coin daily.

 

When I was about 10 years old I tried to straighten out a slightly bent 1899 Barber quarter by biting down on it - which resulted in chipping my tooth and a scratch on the surface of the coin.

 

Sold it...and too many others that I regretted selling.

 

Now that made my day!

 

How did you scratch it?

 

Perhaps metal braces?

 

When I was new to collecting somebody at a coin Show told me I could remove milk spots on a bullion coin by dipping it in ammonia. It made it look like a dull piece of pewter.
Dumb.

 

My mother insists I ate a penny several decades ago and passed it along in my diaper back to her. Honestly though, I have no regrets nor do I recall this "alleged" incident.

 

Swallow one.
When I was about 4 or 5 we lived in Sweden...there were some very small coins available for me to swallow...so I did lol

 

I was about 12 or so and my grandmother gave me a small box of coins that had been gathered over several years by my great-grandmother. One of the coins was a nicely toned 1876-s Trade Dollar. I thought it would be nice to make it shiny again, so out came the Twinkle silver polish. And you all know the end result there

 

Couple of years ago I found a nice 1849-O Seated Liberty Half at the Orlando FUN show to replace one in my SLH collection in AG condition. Got it home and did an acetone rinse as is customary with new coins. Not wanting to stink up the house, the rinse was done on the garage work bench, where upon removing it from the bath it slipped and feel onto the concrete floor.
The rest is history.

 

Don't feel bad. I used to do the same thing.