These were coins i inherited from my grandfather and almost all of them have been heavily cleaned. There are only a few from the set that are gradeable as is.
There is no way this coin would have this type of patina or look after being banged around in a bag of cents. It's not possible. The high areas on the coin would be shiny.
OH NO- would never use it either - would have to clean coins first which I don't do - I love the large cents in original chocolate brown! Well, ALL cents in original condition.
Here's one from the set that semi resembles the other. The other had a deeper purple color to it and a little more shine, but was like this one. I am not trying to misrepresent the coin. If it had lacquer, then that's fine. If it was dipped or cleaned, ok. I just described it the best way I could. Had no idea I would be catching flack for this and have people tell me I didn't actually slosh it around in a bag of wheat cents. When I showed the LCS the original coin before the work done, he said it was a nice coin but too bad it was cleaned/polished/doctored in the past and was not gradeable. That's when I thought I would try out this experiment. If you look at the wreath and ribbon on the back in the low spots of the ribbon where it didn't rub against the wheats, you can see the darker color.
I believe this worked, but I'm a little astonished at the time frame! I would have thought you'd need to carry it around for at least a couple weeks to get such results. I'd consider doing something like this with an otherwise nice, but harshly cleaned or polished coin, as well. It's not really doing anything that a little extra circulation wouldn't do, anyway.
One of the other LCS I visit does this once in a while to harshly cleaned coins that could benefit from some help. He knows it will knock it down a grade or two, but can many times make it gradeable. All its doing is simulating years of circulation in a matter of hours.
I'm not calling your story a lie ... but there are just some things one has to see with their own two eyes to believe and even when we do some things we still don't believe ...
My LCS was shocked when he saw it also. It still, to me, has an unnatural look to it. It looks like it's still dusty from rolling around in the bag. I didn't think it was gradeable, but the PCGS grader must have been at the end of his shift and ready to go home.
Here's one that blows everyone's mind and no one believes. I bought a raw 1931 S Lincoln. I lightly rubbed a spot off, and it rubbed off the patina in that spot and looked bad, so I thought I could even it out and rub some more. The coin then looked like this. (Note the date stamp) I put it in a flip and back in my folder. I checked on it the next day (see date stamp), and wow, almost back to normal. You can verify it's the same coin by the contact marks. I put it on ebay right away and sold it for $80.
Judging by the reflection of the background, feels like the coin was shot under different lighting conditions. As Ed23 said, I`ll believe this only if it happens in front of my own eyes. Both small and large cents easily gain patina back, I know it from my own experience. I got a special "place" where I put cleaned copper coins and after 4-12 weeks there is no way I could tell the coin was cleaned, it is covered by even brown patina. Under certain conditions, I`ll even believe it can take 2 weeks. But not 1 day.
I took the pic sitting at the same place with the same lighting. The pics accurately reflect how it looked in hand. I even provided the date stamp as proof, unless I faked that so that I could, well, I don't know what I would gain by making this stuff up on here. Crazy things happen, and many people don't believe it unless they saw it first hand, which I understand 100%, but no need to make the person feel like they are making things up just because you didn't see it first hand.