I was looking through a quarter roll and found these two. They look like they were cleaned and then washed in something that made them appear to be silver. Any ideas would be welcome.
How about a pic of the edge? Is the copper abnormally bright? Your pictures appear too washed out to really tell. Since both coins are more than 30 years old, many things could have happened to then.
Here are some pictures of the edges. The first two are from the 74 and the second two are from the 92. "Too washed out" is a good observation. They are very good representations of the coins. I mentioned that they looked like they were cleaned and washed with something that made them look silver. Old people like me might remember that appearance on some silver quarters.
Possibly cleaned in mild acid like vinegar/lemon juice or maybe even E-zest. The copper edge looks to have a little burned/tarnished purple discoloration that develops after a cleaning with an ammonia base cleaner.
edges look pretty normal. Maybe just cleaned. Sometimes when I find a really dirty coin when metal detecting, I will clean it on a wire wheel prior to spending it. That way it looks like a quarter instead of a dark mass. Yours when blown up look very similar to the ones I clean.
Yeah…. I think they were cleaned. Just someone with time on their hands probably….. And I would like to use this opportunity to apologize for all those Lincoln’s that I polished with a pencil eraser when I was a kid.
Was thinking about this the other day: in an old kids magic book it has a trick on how to turn pennies "silver" by coating them with "mercury"! While that was way back when, when mercury was available in any broken thermometer. Today the 'hazmat' team comes to decontaminate your house! It's not so much that the metal itself is hazardous but when spilled on the ground, the metal combines with salts to create severe environmental damage. Interestingly, mercury was used anciently as an amalgam (like your dental filing) to find gold and silver. (Sometimes today industrially).
