Newbee question... Is "Turtle Wax headlight lens polish" the best method for cleaning up abused slabs?
Yes and Yes. It was the 5th example in the original post of this thread: https://www.cointalk.com/threads/interesting-finds-aka-where-the-67s-are-from.342300/
Would you happen to know the dates of each upgrade? At least the year? Curious to see if they progressively upgraded, adding mounting evidence of a change in grading standards, or maybe market grading. I believe that now, more than ever before, you need to buy the coin, and not the holder, for a plethora of reasons.
I bought this at Fun a few years ago. I stuck in in my pocket for safe keeping. At some point, I put a 2X2 in the same pocket and walked the show all day. Stupid mistake. The staples really messed it up.
I've had some bad ones. Never sent in for re-holder. I'd just work on it when time allowed. Kept it low stress till smooth again.
One of the side effects of slabbing, the dealers don't feel they have to handle the coins with care anymore. "The slab will protect it."
At least you can reholder if buffing them out fails, as I don't perceive there's an "old holder" premium there. Still, that's a mistake that'll cost you dinner if you do a show reholder without other coins.
All of the holders are relatively new. My best estimate for those examples is that the original grading period was 2014-2016 and the upgrades happened in the 2017-2019 period.
Yes, headlight polish does work quite well, but it takes some elbow grease unless you have a drill and the right kind of polishing pads. Sometimes holders are scratched for a reason. When I first started as a dealer, I had a want list for a raw Draped Bust, Heraldic Eagle Quarter. I spotted an 1807 Quarter in a PCGS VF-30 holder. The windows on the holder were so badly scratched that I could barely see the coin, but I thought I could see enough design detail to support the grade. It was a certifed coin, right? As such there should not have been any serious problems. A dealer friend, who was very good with a tile buster, cracked it out for me at a show. When we saw the coin out of the holder, we both said "YUCK!" The piece had been cleaned and polished and maybe AT'd, and yet PCGS had graded it. I contacted the dealer who sold it to me and gave him some "character enrichment." After a heated discussion, I agreed to sell it back to him for $100 loss and sent him the broken PCGS holder along with the piece. As a PCGS authorized agent dealer, I figured that he could give them some "character enrichment" as well. That coin should have NEVER gone into a holder with a net grade on it for polishing. I chaulked up that $100 as a tuition payment. If you can't see the coin in the holder, DON'T BUY IT! I learned my lesson about "sight unseen" certified coins.
Before I had my account with CAC I would send stuff through a dealer in New Hampshire. I get a couple of them back and two or three of the slabs are badly damaged - obviously dropped while banded together. Sleazy dealer blamed it on CAC. I know pretty well now, been to the CAC office - they don't do that. I had to pay the SOB to send them to NGC for new holders. Anyone who wants to know the dealer's name send me a PM.