One of my habits is visiting what I will call 'bottom tier' gas stations and convenience stores and sometimes purchasing from their owners unusual coins which have found their way into the cash registers there. Historically this has ranged from Barber nickels to ASEs and Morgan dollars. Okay about a week ago I acquired a grungy looking Liberty quarter. Put it in my jeans pocket and forgot about it as the day wore on. Forgot about it the next day too when I worked on my car in the same dungarees. So yesterday I washed the dungarees then chucked em in the drier. Today, I find a bright and shiny, but well worn Liberty quarter in the pocket.. Here is my question. Does this constitute the forbidden 'cleaning' of a coin or should it merely be considered ;rinsed; or 'washed?'
There is cleaning and there is harsh cleaning. Cleaning does no harm to the coin, and harsh cleaning does do harm to the coin. What you need to understand is that when you read or hear someone say cleaned or cleaning in regard to a coin what they really mean is harshly cleaned - the harmful kind. To answer your question about your coin you need to look at it. If the coin has patches of light scratches and/or hairlines on it then it would be considered harshly cleaned. If it does not, then it would not be.
I'm reporting the OP for money laundering. Well, unless it's a key date, it's worth its weight in silver, which is what it was worth before it got washed, so my vote is: don't worry about it.
If it is a key date, it’s going to look like it was washed & dried, which qualifies as an improper cleaning (IMO), so the value would be reduced drastically.
No, the liberty quarter had no marks. It had stayed in the dungaree's pocket and I suspect the denim shielded it from the scratches and gouges the machines would have otherwise caused. Nevertheless, it looks strange. As bright and shiny as an MS69 like the day it was made, but also worn almost smooth in spots. Tide with Borax. Okay, I played around some more with a bunch of 1970s thru 1985 pennies. Took 2 dozen, all dark brown, all business class and well circulated, put them in a welches jelly glass with some hot water and dishwashing liquid. I let them sit for 10 hours swirling occasionally. Interesting results. You can very clearly tell on inspection something happened to them. I learned a new name for Patina.. Dirt. Most of whatever constituted the patina on them washed off. But not evenly. I have coins with dark spots. One of the zinc pennies, it looks like the copper wash was really thin. Grayish metal shows through in places. I apologize for the poor picture quality (cell phone without a macro setting). But even fuzzy, you can see the way 'soak in dishwasher water cleaning' cleaned some places but left evidence something had been done. One coin (top) is zinc, the other copper.
Someone else needs to put a dirty coin in an old sock, then put the tied off sock inside an ultrasonic tank of just hot water. Let us see if that does a more even job. The sock should protect the coin from scratching.
