This thread may get a little pushback by those that don't like to conserve/properly clean a coin. But I've had my eye on a particular 1879-S Morgan at my LCS for months now. It was graded MS-64 by PCGS. It had one of those pink Breast Cancer awareness labels. What really had me excited was the reverse. I could see it was at least a nice cameo PL, but the obverse had some fairly severe haze/film that was really holding back the luster and making the coin ugly. So today, I was able to talk the owner down to a reasonable price as I was going to take her home and crack her out. She needed a bath badly. Here is how she looked before: After cracking her out and soaking in acetone for a little bit, I poured some EZ-EST into a shallow glass bowl until it just covered the bottom. I then held the coin in my hand which had a nitrile glove and just let the obverse come in contact with the solution. After a few seconds, I ran the coin under warm running tap water. I then rinsed in bowl of warm soapy water and rinsed under running water again. I then laid her on a towel and gently patted her dry. Then I let her soak in a bowl with fresh MS-70 for about 15 minutes. I repeated the rinse with warm running water and rinse in warm soapy water and back to the warm running water. After drying her again, I rinsed in clean acetone. The reverse had quite an improvement, but the biggest difference was the life be brought back to the obverse. The reverse is a VERY reflective cameo DMPL now. The obverse still has a touch of haze to it, but nothing like it started out. I might try to send her into NGC and get her reverse mounted and hope for a ★ designation. Here are the after images:
I did. Eww. That's a huge improvement. Also, that was a wacky looking slab anyway. (No disrespect to breast cancer awareness, but it looked weird with the text label underneath the reverse side of the coin.)
You did a great job on that coin! That’s quite an improvement. As I started to read your opening post my first thought was to crack her out and send in for restoration and regrading. By the time I saw the final photos I thought you should be working for the restoration department at a TPG. Please repost after she’s regraded and I sure hope the 64 goes up a couple of notches.
Thank you guys. It was a bit of a roll of the dice on how much the obverse would improve. I'm very happy with how it turned out. It's the first time I've tried to do a one sided dip. What surprised me most was how much the acetone/MS-70 improved the reverse.
Excellent job of conservation. The coin was initially unattractive. Now, it is lustrous and clean. The reverse looks prooflike.
Huge improvement I didn’t like the coin before. But honestly I wouldn’t reverse mount it. I personally don’t like or buy reverse mounted slabs
You did well and this was the perfect coin to experiment with (it was at the point where even if it was ruined, you wouldn't be losing much-besides part of what you paid).
