I have a really interesting coin which is a massive hammered Pound coin dated 1642 which I featured on another thread. It has quite a bit of staining on the reverse or irregular patination. If I try and remove this it will come back as Details " Nightmare cleaning, artificial toning, and a Danger Will Robinson notice from NCG. I'm reaching out to any members who have experience of NGC conservation. Before I commit to big bucks can they deal with this to make it more attractive , do you have experience with NGC of removing stains from early coins? I don't want to spend money and have no result. The XRF test shows the metrology is spot on with 92.5 silver etc and it would be great to see an improved coin but I don't want to waste time and money. All comments welcome and this could equally be a US coin. This is the coin which weighs over 123 g with a coin from the same time weighing 0.8 g !
It honestly depends on what the staining is, what caused it, and how deeply it has penetrated the surface. NGC will not do anything to cause further harm, but if there is a substance present that is causing harm they will remove it and stabilize the coin. They make no guarantee that the coin will receive a straight grade - the damage already done may just make a details coin... but the professional conservation gives you the peace of mind that no further damage will occur. It is very possible that it will come back with a Details grade... I understand that you don't want that, but if there are surface problems they have to disclose that. I highly recommend it. I've only used their conservation services a couple of times and I've been highly pleased (on my particular coins there was no underlying damage so they received straight grades).
Standard Conservation "All coins. 4% Fair Market Value (FMV) ($25 minimum fee). Also select an applicable NGC grading tier. NGC grading fees additional. If NGC believes that conservation will not benefit a coin submitted under the Standard Conservation tier, it will be transferred to grading and a $5 per coin conservation evaluation fee will apply. Really hard to say what they can do with that severe of corrosion. Maybe? I don't have a good answer for you but wil be very interested in your resulf if you try. It's not cheap to send a single coin of anything down there to do anything. But at least if they can't conserve it, it looks like you'd only be out a $5 evaluation fee tacked on to the grading fee. You might be able to request for it to not be graded if it doesn't conserve then you'd only be out the shipping. I would give them a call. For $50 you can have it through there in 5 days. I'd pony up the money myself. I have eight coins down there right now that arrived July 7th and they're still sitting there schedule for grading as of today August 8th. The wait sucks.
If you have more than one coin, consider ANACS. They have a flat rate for conservation and I can't imagine their special sauce is much different than any other TPG. They did a great job with my Canadian coins a couple years ago. I had some spotty stuff especially on one of them, but it was nowhere near as advanced as yours. Before: After:
