1867 Shield Nickel with Rays for grading

I will post the results tomorrow as I need to image the slabs. After 9 days on the road the only thing I'm doing now is bed.

 

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I have a question that I need answered. I will get to it. Sorry for the long post. When someone claims a 150 year old coin has never been cleaned, you really don't know (in most cases) the 100 year history of that coin before you were born. (Just using round numbers.)
I assume, that most coins at one time or another have been cleaned, and here is why I think that. There must have been a time, 100 years ago or whenever, when it wasn't known that cleaning damages coins. And coin collectors (rich middle aged men for the most part) were proud of their collection, and wanted to display their collection, to friends, visitors, relatives, and themselves. And they wanted the coins to look good. Clean, shiny and new and not dingy and uncleaned. So, these coins were cleaned.
Here is my question. At what point in history (50 years ago? More?) was it decided/ discovered by the coin community that cleaning coins does more harm than good and was highly frowned upon/ discouraged?
Thanks.

 

Regarding the original coin shown in this thread, although the remaining mint luster is commensurate with a high-AU grade, it appears to me to be "market acceptable" with a market value of a nice XF-45 specimen (my opinion). It would actually be several steps higher in grade if not for the weak strike.

 

You know what it means and I'll add that it is a 100% sure thing that either one of us has examined more nickels than you have so that is the reason I value his opinion over yours. Now all I hope to do in this thread is to possibly get you consider the OP's nickel has lost much of its detail on the dat and shield due to weakness and not damage.

 

There are two aspects to "cleaning." One is the technical definition of "cleaning" where an object (cloth, brush, etc.) is used to scrape away (albeit in microscopic proportions) the top layer of metal of a coin to reveal virgin metal underneath. This was usually done to get rid of oxidation. This method leaves hairlines as it is abrasive

There is a distant cousin called "dipping." It should not be confused with "dipping," but it gets grouped into the same overarching terminology. Dipping can either chemically strip the top layer of metal off of a coin, or it can chemically alter the atoms of metal so that the contaminating particles (sulfur for example) are removed without touching the metal. This method does not leave hairlines, but the first chemical damages the coin while the second chemical can be used to genuinely improve a coin.

In the case of this nickel, its surfaces don't react as readily to the environment as silver, so it is reasonable to say that it can still be blast-white without being cleaned.

It was decided about 30-50 years ago that the abrasive and metal-stripping methods of cleaning a coin actually harmed the surfaces of the coin by producing irreversable damage that reduced the eye appeal of the coin. As a result, they were considered damaged and sold at a lesser price to pristine coins.

Oh, and @Paddy54 , I gave a presentation on detecting cleaned coins a couple weeks ago to my coin club. Bill Fivaz was present, and he agreed with and backed all of my points with his experience. I would hope I know a cleaned coin when I see one. Albeit it was about silver and copper coins as that is my specialty. I do not have much experience with nickel coins that have had an old cleaning.

 

I've only been around coins as a "serious" collector since 1962. I don't recall much talk about cleaning but whizzing was popular. A coin's originality became important to me in around 1968. Cleaning was discussed in authentication seminars inthe early 70's.

 

@Paddy54

You have some nice coins. IMO, nothing below XF. The 70 is my favorite, probably graded Unc. The 68 should be "detailed" as cleaned. The 67 rays looks AU but ED or dirt so probably graded XF. There is weakness on the shield (along with wear) on three of the coins. Note that the weakness on the OP's coin appears different and has traces of impact marks that remained in the area not fully struck of the bars.

 

My read on the OP coin is grease filled die. The reverse is nearly fully struck but the obverse is spotty weakly struck, especially the date. The grainy appearance of the weak date digits lead me to believe it's not PMD. As mentioned by Steve, it's market acceptable in my opinion as well.

 

The first image makes the date area look like damage. The next images don't show that.

 

As luck would have it my internet went down sometime over night so I will post TPG and grades and follow up later with images if Comcast ever gets its stuff together!
Coin #1 1867 NR PCGS XF 45, coin # 2 1867 Rays PCGS XF 40, coin # 3 1870 PCGS Genuine code 94 , coin #4 1868 RPD F-26 Cleaned Details AU-53, coin #5 Anacs Vf 30
*The 1870 will be cracked out and retoned as in hand this shows no sign of a cleaning or Altered surfaces. And do believe it would go MS in grade.
However even through it doesn't I don't care as it's a full strike and still retains about 50% or more luster and original skin.

 

I also think the OP's coin has a very weak obverse strike as opposed to damage. I can't tell from a pic whether it's been cleaned or not.

 

I should have wrote "As mentioned by Dan," I work with Steve Carr.

 

Thank you both for your informative replies to my question. I was not trying to deflect or hijack the thread in any way.
It's just that I have read a number of posts, where the OP swears/ assures that this coin has never been cleaned. And it's a 200 year old silver coin, they really don't know the entire history of the coin, and it prob has been cleaned. (In this case 150 year old coin.) I like the shield nickels, I have a number of circulated, along with a 66 rays and a 67 rays.
The OP's coin seems to me, to be worth much more than the buying price.

 

If not all the luster is there, hasn't it been worn off and therefore should be considered AU? I don't understand your logic.

 

This coin looks like a grease strike to me, not uneven wear. The date is definitely struck-through grease (not PMD).
Probably cleaned, as it's too clean for a circulated coin.

Technically, I would give the coin a fairly high grade (can't say if it's high AU or actually MS). But the eye appeal is poor due to the weakness of the strike, and IMO that will impact value significantly.

 

I bet it grades AU50. I don't see the cleaning based on the pics. The "damage" I agree is just strike. I would put it in my Dansco 7070 type set and enjoy it raw for years to come rather than slab it to prove others wrong. But that's just me.

 

If I slab it and list it at 75% of retail price, I will get some dumb investor who will buy it and not know the difference.

 

Not know the difference between what?

 

A fully-struck coin, and my coin. But if one is only looking at the label, does it really matter?

 

I'm not one for often advocating grease as the culprit when devices are only partially obscured, as is the date in the OP coin. You have to assume some serious level of suspended grit in the grease, enough to reduce its' viscosity sufficient to keep it from instantly following the laws of fluid dynamics in the instant of striking pressure and flowing to the lowest points.

This case is an exception, I think, based on the gritty look of the (purported) strikethrough area on the date and to its' immediate left. That is how I could see really gritty grease manifesting - the grit resists strike pressure more than the "liquid" part of the grease and indeed is tough enough to affect adjoining fields. I'm not completely discounting the idea that it's PMD as opposed to grease, but in this specific case the argument for the latter is pretty strong.

Now. When considering a coin which shows drastically different levels of "wear" between faces - this one hints at low VF obverse and near-AU reverse - you have to wonder why and how a coin can wear more on one face than the other. Answer: It doesn't. So you have to look a little deeper into the causes of the look.

The obverse is pretty clearly a rarity for this series - an old, worn die, as noted by the rim crumbling especially visible in the northeast quadrant. We're not used to seeing this on Shield Nickels.

Therein, however, lies a strong hint as to why the obverse and reverse differ in "wear". Another hint is in what (I tentatively conclude) is the presence of grease in the die. If it's already in one place - the date - it could just as easily be in another.

When we further factor the knowledge that the shield is often weakly-struck even in examples called "decent" strikes - have a look at some of these in the Heritage Archives - we can find some reasonably-complete explanation for the coin we see here.

To my mind, this example has undoubtedly been cleaned, given the plain appearance of "crud" in the tighter-detailed areas inside and next to the devices. In this case, I think the cleaning culprit is plain soap and water or similar, nothing "abrasive."

So my conclusion for this one, based strictly on what I see in these specific images, would be XF Details, Cleaned.