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:
These are all very insightful answers and thank you @physics-fan3.14, @Vess1 and @KBBPLL . I'll report back @Neal I had never considered ANACS. $59 for up to 10 coins is remarkable value as this coin would cost me $200 at NGC. It would be interesting to see how ANACS handles shipwreck coins. I'm grading quite a few shipwreck coins with NGC and the reason is I like their Shipwreck holders but more importantly I know the chance of me losing COA's , envelopes and other provenance documents is high and even higher when I am no longer around so it makes sense to use the provenance to confirm where the coin originated from and then trust providence not to lose the paperwork. A TPG lost an original Sotheby's shipwreck sale envelope last year.
Interesting comment @green18 . The original post was started because I am not clever or experienced enough to know what the stains are on my coin and I sought advice. I am grateful for positive comments. I like @KBBPLL's comment and what was achieved with his coins. My coin has lasted 400 years and statistically I will be dead in another 20 so as custodian I am minded to ensure that I know about the stain and will it progress or can it be cured? To give a Sheldon score on a 400 year old hammered coin is laughable as every single coin is different so I would submit to check authenticity ( it is real I've done a XRF test before wasting my time) to prove to others it is genuine. Also if they can improve the coin visually with this one it could raise the value by 3 figures so no way will I "fold my tent" . I live in the real world. I know it is likely to come back as details "field smoothed" because they all seem to be but they are so rare it doesn't affect value in this grade. If the grader had a bad day and argued with his wife over breakfast and injects venom into his grade so what? I will crack it out of the plastic as I do with a lot of others and it will be sold as a lovely raw coin without the TPG nonsense.
Great comment @physics-fan3.14 Absolutely agree with you and this is the answer I sought. Thank you !
Well, I've always been of the mind 'ya want it graded, buy it graded'. That in essence was my answer to your query. Just a humble opinion on my part. And if my answer came across a little too strong, chalk it up to your own comments on what could be achieved by sending off a coin to a third party grader to be assessed on opinion of such on a given day......bad lunch, fight with the wife. Bad grade. Body bag. Roll the dice my friend...Or leave it be. It's your coin.
I’ve found, though costly, sending things to NGC is not only a way to authenticate, grade and slab, but as a collector and just a middle aged working guy, it becomes somewhat of a form of entertainment. For yourself, for your own knowledge as well as additional info you can share with this forum. So there is that aspect that’s part of it. Sometimes there’s surprises and you learn from it.
Too true. I hand delivered a consignment to the FUN convention, it took six months, some hammered coins came back details "cleaned", they lost some original provenance paper work , gave shipwreck provenance on their registry to a great coin but didn't use the shipwreck label I asked for or even name the ship. It was entertaining and a bit like a game of chance! Plenty of drama opening the box when it came back. As I've said elsewhere it is great to authenticate particularly like me if you can lose paperwork. If it all went smoothly we'd have nothing to write about.
Good point. Issue over here is that the majority of coins are raw, grading is the exception unless they turn up via Heritage who grade everything. TPG does nothing for me except allow me to buy "details" coins cheap because I buy what I like in the look of a coin not someone's opinion and often than not crack them out because people over here know that a 400 year old coin has had something done to it at some time. My enquiry was conserving which is a completely different ball park, I have never had a coin conserved or bought one and I didn't want to blow hundreds of dollars to see no improvement. I don't know what the stains are on this coin or how to remove them so wanted to learn as I don't like them. I know one thing, if I do anything it will be called cleaning , artificial toning or whatever but if the grader does something that will be OK and probably not mentioned. Too old to worry about strong answers only trying to learn what can be achieved. If nothing can be, it can stay raw as I prefer that anyway. I like your John Wooden quote, I had never heard of him.
Awesome coach and words of wisdom. Every time I get the big britches I always refer back to his statement. Sorry, I blew it with regard to your conservation question. That's a whole different world. Especially if the item in question is of exceptional value and can be conserved.
No probs I learnt about John Woods. I looked him up and he made a lot of great comments. Every day is a school day!
