I need an experienced opinion. My mother purchased a set of 20th century coins in 1995. These pictures are a sample of most of the coins in the set. I think they are whizzed. I hope the scans give enough detail to tell. If they are whizzed, how badly does that deteriorate their value? Most of them aren't exactly gem quality to begin with as you can see.
Oh, my, those look awful. They don't look "whizzed", but they are very harshly cleaned and are probably not worth more than melt.
I thought they looked like someone took a steel wool pad to them. Not even attempting to hide what they were doing.
There is a huge difference between whizzed and harshly cleaned. Those coins have been harshly cleaned - but they have not been whizzed.
Almost all 20th century sets that were (and are) being sold through newspaper and magazine ads contain low grade silver coins that were harshly cleaned in order to make them "shine"... a marketing ploy for the numismatically uneducated. This misleading tactic would lure people into paying considerably more for the set (displayed in frame of some sort) than the coins were worth. So, dispite the fact that your coins aren't "whizzed", they carry little if any numistmatic value and are worth basically "melt". Here's a typical example being offered on eBay: http://www.ebay.com/itm/US-20th-CEN...57?pt=Coins_US_Individual&hash=item5ae169cf2d
That eBay offering is a great example of how NOT to market 20th century type sets-- fuzzy, low-resolution photos, coins that are oriented every which-way, and even coins that are in the wrong holes!
Yeah, whizzing them wouldn't have helped anyway. Whizzing is done on EF/AU coins typically to make them appear to have mint luster and be BU coins. These coins are way too worn for any real collector to believe they possibly could be MS.
Even if they are most likely worth melt, seeing that she bought them in 1995 and silver spot has gone up significantly she has a decent shot of making some money selling them for melt.
