Odd shine on a Morgan - updated with pics I'll post pics if necessary, but maybe you guys can tell from the description: I'm sorting through piles of Morgans, and among the circulated coins, there are two 1921-S that shine as if they were plated with chrome or stainless. It's not the shine of the uncirculateds that I have, and they are worn. They seem the same weight as the regular coin. Could this come about from a proof coin entering into circulation?
Definately gonna need pics on this one..... Sounds like they've experianced a cleaning of some sort along the way.
here's some pics, it's hard to capture the difference in the shine, but I tried here. The top coin is a brilliant uncirculated. You can see the "cartwheels" in the shine. The middle coins are the ones that may have been polished. A much smoother shine. Looks like a cheap plastic token. The bottom one is a normal circulated. You can see the diffusion of light, minimal shine.
The 2 middle ones both look like they were harshly cleaned. The left one especially, looks like it was cleaned with a pencil eraser (which used to be a popular way to clean coins), it leaves that shine you see.
Just as an addition, when proofs are circulated and worn, they resemble ( surface wise) the business strike circulated coins. That is when the rims edges, strike,and other device differences have to be used to identify "impaired" proof coins. Jim
