Learning how to correctly identify harshly cleaned coins is one of the hardest things there is to do in numismatics. It requires a great deal of knowledge and great deal of experience. And I know of no website, or book that tells you how to do it. And I say book because no single article could possibly encompass everything there is to know. But there are some that talk about specific kinds of harsh cleaning. A big part of the problem is how many different ways there are to harshly clean a coin - you'd be hard pressed to count them all. If you can imagine it, it's been tried. So about the best you can hope for is to gather bits and pieces of information found in various threads, websites, articles, books, and even threads on coin forums. Do a search using harshly cleaned or cleaned coins as your key words, the number of hits that come up will give you some idea of what I mean.
A method to learn what to look for is to research the methods of how to clean coins. The most obvious identifiers are from a cloth wipe. others are ppl who don't clean properly and leave dark marks around legends (stars, letters), or conversely those areas are stars/letters are slightly lighter. Or a sheen is left. Of course, the color of the cleaning can vary amongst different coins - gold, silver, copper. You might want to look for books of how to properly clean coins, as they also (like mine have) of what it looks like when not done properly.
Thanks, I pretty determined to figure out cleaned coins before I buy anymore because I unknowingly bought 2 cleaned coins at full coin prices
Can you post pics of the cleaned coins and maybe someone can help point out what you should be looking for?
It is much harder to tell with early copper half cents and large cents, especially when dark brown. Unless you see hairlines, I find those the toughest to identify.
Coins that have been cleaned by people who don't think much about scrubbing the dirt off a coin will usually have hairlines running the same direction from something being scrubbed on the coin. However you need a loupe and should have it in hand, so you can't really identify cleaned coins if you are buying online (if you are buying online and are worried about a cleaned coin, buy graded coins after verifying that they are professionally slabbed by putting the number in the website). Also, some harshly cleaned coins will have a strange look when you put them directly in the light. The coin will seem to have luster while still having worn details. Hope this helped you learn about cleaned coins! Here are some examples of terrible obviously cleaned coins: This coin seems more lustrous than it should be considering the details are worn out. This one has very visible hairlines. Also, cleaned coins will have "luster" that does not appear in bands, which is the distinction between a mint state coin and a circulated coin.
The very first thing that everyone needs to learn - is what coins that have not been harshly cleaned are supposed to look like ! And this includes all conditions or state of preservation and grades. If you don't learn that first you'll never be able to learn how to correctly identify harshly cleaned coins, with the possible exception of some of the most egregious methods. Anybody can identify those, it's everything else that is difficult.
@CoinBlazer Here you go! https://www.cointalk.com/threads/how-to-tell-if-a-coin-has-been-cleaned.324592/ @GDJMSP we have some good information here on CoinTalk
Do yourself a favor and get a coin certified (that you collect) at as high of grade as you can afford. I got myself a MS66 Peace Dollar and it is helping to teach me what the surface is supposed to look like on a silver coin. Also, I have several cleaned coins in my collection - at first I really had trouble with them but now after some study they stick out like sore thumbs. I think some people are afraid of getting burned - but I think picking up a few certified 'details' coins on eBay is a good learning tool.
Don't bother learning how to spot different problems on coins. There are too many ways a coin may have been messed with to learn to recognize them all. A lot of people go down that road and it's a huge waste of time. As a matter of course, you will eventually be able to spot different types of cleaning without having to study it specifically. Though it still takes a lot of time to get right, learning what originality looks like is far simpler. If you can recognize an original look, then when you don't see originality you will know it's a problem coin. At that point the only thing that matters is the eye appeal.
There's lots of them, that one is just the most recent, and it only touches on a few things. Use the search function, you'll find more threads than you care to read.
