Lessons in problem coins: Whizzed.

I'll start off by saying the coin that started this thread has not been whizzed. Oh it's definitely been messed with, but it wasn't whizzed. And I'm not trying to be argumentative. I am trying to be informative.

Over the last 15-20 years there's been so much bad information put out on coin forums and even in articles regarding whizzing that people don't even know what it is anymore. The very definition of the word, let alone how to recognize whizzing, has been bastardized, misunderstood, and totally misrepresented. In today's world, even the TPGs will label a coin as having been whizzed when it wasn't whizzed at all. And of course this has only contributed to the problem and made it worse.

To explain all of this would take a lot of time and a lot of writing, and a lot of looking to find the pictures necessary to back it all up and help explain it. So I'll see if I can actually do that, but first I have to find the time to do it. Once you've seen real whizzing, there's no misinterpreting it, or misidentifying it anymore.

 

That's it in a nutshell. A coin is whizzed with a high speed rotating wire brush - nothing else. Use a different tool and the coin has not been whizzed. It may have been buffed or polished but it was not whizzed.

 

I'm working on a post as you posted Paul.

 

I guess maybe the best way to explain things is it's a matter of technicality. Whizzing, whizzed, has become something of a catch-all term used to cover several different things, but primarily polishing and buffing. In other words they use whizzed to cover/describe all 3 of those terms - whizzed, buffing, polishing - but all 3 of those terms are distinctly different things and done with different methods. And all 3 of them have different, but similar in some ways, looks.

Granted, buffing and polishing are similar in the way the finished product looks, but buffing is done with a machine and polishing is done by hand. Several different types of wheels, meaning size and shape as well as different materials, can be used for buffing. But polishing is typically done with a rag or cloth, by hand.

Whizzing on the other hand is only done with a wire brush wheel and of the three terms it has the most distinctive look. And it always has one tell tale diagnostic - built up metal at the edges of the devices. If that diagnostic is not present then the coin was not whizzed.

As I said, it's a technicality, but it's an important technicality. They don't have 3 different words in the dictionary because all 3 words mean and describe the same thing - they are 3 completely things !

Where a lot of folks get confused is that all 3 things, buffing, polishing, and whizzing, produce lines on the coin as a result of the material or item being dragged across the surface of the coin. So when people see those lines they just say - it's been whizzed. Even the TPGs have adopted this habit. Coins that were not whizzed at all are slabbed with the whizzed designator.

Some examples.

Would anyone say this coin has been whizzed ?



It's definitely been harshly cleaned but it hasn't been whizzed.

What about this one -



Which is found in this article in Coin World -
https://www.coinworld.com/voices/michael-bugeja/2018/01/photoshopping_whizze.html

It's described as having been whizzed but it hasn't been whizzed either. It has however been harshly cleaned.

Or how about this one which is found here -
https://www.apmex.com/product/71463/1800-draped-bust-dollar-au-details-ngc-whizzed





It's described as having been whizzed but it hasn't. This one, unless I miss my guess has been buffed.


So what's whizzed coin look like then ? Answer, this is what a whizzed coin looks like.




As I said above, when a coin is whizzed a fine wire brush on a fast rotating machine is used. That leaves behind those lines you see on the picture. The purpose of the lines, fine scratches actually, is to simulate luster on a coin that has no luster. Luster after all is a series of fine lines on the surface of a coin, and they are what catch the light and make it reflect and refract the way it does. But when a coin doesn't have any luster you can simulate that look by creating your own fine lines on the surface. And it will fool those who don't know what they are looking at.

When people talk about whizzed coins they always talk about the halos. Do you know why ? It's because whizzed coins have halos around the devices, numerals and letters. But just because those halos are there, doesn't mean the coin was whizzed. There are several ways that halos are created. Toning for example can create halos, but those coins weren't whizzed either, even though they have the halos. Toning halos are created because of the difference in the metal surfaces. Up close next to devices, letters and numerals, the fine flow lines that create luster are not there like they are just a tiny little distance away from them. And that's what creates the halo effect on toned coins. The very molecular structure of the metal up close to the letters, devices, and numerals is different because it has been worked, stretched, hardened there, so it does not tone the same way as the fields do. And that creates the halo look.

When coins are polished, harshly cleaned or buffed, halos are also present. But on them the halos are there because the rag, the buffing wheel, or abrasive material cannot get down into the tiny crevice where the raised metal meets the fields - and that creates the halo effect. In that tiny little area you have 2 different surfaces, the surface that was polished, buffed or harshly cleaned, and the surface that wasn't.

On whizzed coins the halo is created by something entirely different. On whizzed coins the halo is created by raised, built up metal that was pushed there by the fine wire brush wheel. Coins that were actually whizzed always have that built up metal next to or just in front of raised areas, depending of course on which way, the direction, the wheel was spinning. And if you look at these pictures you'll see all of these differences.

It may be a fine line, a technicality, for what defines a coin that has been whizzed and one that has not, but it is a line that is real and is there. It's like so many other things when it comes to definitions, people just start using one word to cover a multitude of sins. And pretty soon it's accepted as accurate, when it isn't accurate at all.