Hi everyone, I'm fairly new to this and have a bunch of Morgan silver dollars. Most of them were unfortunately kept loose in a Ziploc bag and for the most part are a bit banged up and tarnished. About a dozen were stored properly, so I'm not too broken up. My question: I have an 1880-O Morgan dollar that was encased in some sort of polymer, like it was supposed to be a paperweight or something. The coin itself is beautiful, some minor contact marks, but great luster and very bold features. So, since this coin is in this stupid clear plastic enclosure, is it worthless? Is there any way to get it out without damaging the coin? I don't think it's the 80 over 79 version of this coin, but I have a hard time telling. I don't have a digital camera, sorry, but I can tell you this thing shines like a new dime! Can anyone give me any insight on this? The coin is completely surrounded by plastic, no seams. Should I leave it alone or take it out? Is it ruined? Thanks for any input! -Rosie
I would leave it alone as more than likely its already damaged just being in there---and then getting it out would just about kill it! Hope this helps! Speedy
Rosie: Welsome, and Speedy is right, leave it alone. You would totally damage the piece trying to remove it. Besides, there is someone who will collect anything.
That's too bad, it's my best looking one. I think my Grandfather did this, he polymered everything. Grrrr. Thanks for the quick replies! Rosie
Maybe one of our members (Just Carl?) knows how the melting point of that lucite (probably) compares with the melting point of coin silver. If there's a wide enough margin it might be possible to melt the plastic off the coin without causing any damage.
Can you show my a picture of what you talking about. It might be something as siple as turn your freezer up high and leave it in there for a few day and smash it out of the plastic. But i really need pictures to find out what it looks like. But really the coin not worth much more then 5 bucks nice looking or not becuase its got whats called PROBLEMS. lol
Morgan Dollar= 90% Silver, 10% Copper Lucite melting point: 135-140°C (265-285°F) Silver melting point: 961°C (1761°F) Copper melting point: 1083°C (1981°F)
(Taking a Chemistry course in school this year really helps!:rolling So, technically, you could just melt the lucite/acrylic off the coin, but don't blame me if it ruins the coin.
This tips me off---most of the coins I've seen in such things as paper weights are most of the time cleaned---and they shine---this is NOT good as it lowers the value of a coin sometimes as much as 50%... Speedy
This is the best I could do with only a scanner (broken digital cam) Just to give you guys an idea of it. About a half inch of lucite around the coin. Think of a hockey puck, maybe less wide, about the same thickness.
Those are the worst pics ever, sorry.. Good point on it being cleaned perhaps. Maybe not though, it's been like this for at least a few decades. How can you tell if it has been cleaned?
Especially since it's a relatively low value coin, I think if it were mine I'd bring my outdoor barbeque up to ~300F, then place the lucite block on an aluminum pie plate for a few minutes and see what happened. If the plastic seems to be melting off, I'd extract the coin with wooden chopsticks and put it on a piece of glass to cool off. With no idea what fumes melting lucite might give off, I would no more do this in an indoor oven than I would drink acetone! As far as the (probable) polishing goes, it couldn't have devalued the coin below it's melt value, so what the heck.
leave it? Since the plastic it is in is not like a big square block and not overly large, you could just leave it in and have the worlds best airtight coin holder! It's not a real bad way to display it.:thumb:
