About 10 years ago I was younger and dumber, now I'm just older. Anyway I let this fellow collector at work talk me into dipping some of my ASE's to get rid of the tarnish. I don't clean collector silver coins but I thought bullion was just like a tea service. Some of these ASE's are discolored and spotted. If I ever tried to sell them how much would I be penalized. I see places like AMPEX selling coins they call "scruffy" and "cleaned" at a lower price. If I tried to sell to them at their buy price for random year ASE's would they cry foul? I"m not trying to pull anything I just want to know what the FMV would be. All of my ASE's are in Whitman plastic snap holders. I've seen all the articles on here on toning. If I just let them be and allow them to "retone" is it a big deal? I have put all of my recent bullion purchases in Airtites.
If they are simply dipped then there should be no issue as long as they do not have dip residue on the pieces.
No residue that I know of. I rinse them off in plain water. I ordered them from Austin and Littleton back in the 1990's and they were tarnished when I got them. A few of them were dinged. I probably should have sucked it up.
You probably didn't do much damage. They could probably still be sold for the same price as a silver round, but probably lost whatever collector value they had. If condition is important to you, you could sell them and buy replacements.
Typically bullion being cleaned (a quick dip) isn't a bad thing as it is considered a no-no with other collector coins. These are bullion coins and used/treated as bullion. I don't know about how Apmex or other dealers would inspect your bullion or even begin to sort out cleaned from uncleaned and determine the value they'd be willing to offer. You might call them and pose the question to see if they have such a buy-back policy. I don't think they have anything like that listed on their web site. I believe they list them on their web site in the price categories they have for customers to understand the quality of the bullion coins they are buying because many customers may also be coin collectors or just plain prefer fresh new or new looking coins without marks, prints, tone or having been cleaned, despite the coins being bullion.
I think what you ask is a fair question. I try to ask the extreme example and see what people think. Say I have a ASE and I take a hammer to it. Beat it repeatedly with a meat tenderizer and toss is against the concrete as hard as I can repeatedly, until you can make out it is a ASE but horribly damaged. Do you think I'd get spot?
You're getting off topic with your own inquiry and you haven't answered the OP. However, did you clean the ASE before and or after the hammer assault? LOL. The answer is clear, yes, it is worth spot if the weight and metal composition is correct. YET you will need to find a dealer who will (after likely testing the metal composition and weight) buy it, but they may not buy it for spot, especially if the purity cannot be determined without proper assay, since you removed the clear markings but left enough to tell it may have once been an authentic ASE. Whether you find the buyer/dealer to accept it is the first problem, what they will pay for it another. A dealer who buys it, a one off that you beat to crap, likely tosses it in a junk surplus pile waiting to go off to melt with little money lost if its not authentic as you say it is. BUT it is no longer a govt issued ASE that might have, should and usually does carry a premium over spot when in proper/reasonable as issued coin form, with its hallmarks from the issuing government entity in readable condition and such that one can determine it is not a fake of some kind due to your alterations. How much tolerance for damage is acceptable may be up to the person/dealer you have a transaction with. If this were paper currency, banks typically replace damaged and mangled FRNs with greater than 50% of the bill intack. A note requires at least 1 full SN and 1/2 the other SN to be used as legal tender.
Wow, you answered that well. I feel your answer applies to the original poster's question as well. The fact is, the coin has been altered in some shape or form. And I think it depends on the dealer who is willing to buy it. It probably depends on his market, as he has to sell this coin after he buys it...and he has to consider who is going to buy a coin that looks like that. While the original poster's question doesn't pertain to a coin so badly damaged and altered, it still has been altered to some degree. So, it depends on that particular dealers ability to sell such a coin. If he has customers that are willing to buy a cleaned ASE he probably will buy it. If he doesn't think he will be able to sell the cleaned ASE, he won't buy it, as it would be a lost investment for him. My guess is that since cleaning isn't harsh damage he would probably buy it for around spot or slightly less. I guess I posed the question because I wanted to point out that an altered coin is still worth less then an unscathed one, even for bullion like ASEs.
Dipping (cleaning) bullion is a far cry from altering coined bullions hallmarks. The damage from dipping a piece of bullion and trading/selling (resale) of dipped bullion is not a collectible numismatic question where such 'altered' surface issues typically applies. In this case, as bullion, we are looking for the indicators of purity and authenticity to support the bullion bought/sold. :thumb:
