Does anyone know if there is a way to chemically test a silver coin to discover if it's been dipped? Thanks B12
None that I know of. But I think dipped coins tend to have more copper on the surface than undipped ones, because the dip just removes the silver. Charlie
If there is I have not heard of it - but there's a lot of things I haven't heard of. But the best way to tell if a coin has been dipped is experience. For example - a coin that shows no signs of wear whatsoever, but yet the coin has very poor or no luster remaining - that coin has been dipped. Over-dipped in fact. Or a circulated coin that has no sign of dirt or toning on the majority of the coin's surfaces, but has traces of dirt left in the fine details and protected areas - that coin has either been dipped or otherwise cleaned. Or a coin that is over say 50 years old and yet it is blast white with no sign of toning whatsoever - the odds are about 9 to 1 that the coin has been dipped. Other times there traces of dip residue left on the coin in protected areas, or streaking across the surfaces. It can be any or all of the above or any combination of them. Like I said - it takes experience.
'm sure it can be done. Simplest way would probably be to wash the coin with distilled water and then run the wash through a gas chromatagraph. They are getting the equipment up to the point where they can detect a few parts per trillion. If there are ANY lingering traces of dip left on the coins it would probably detect it. Of course the problem with the extreme sensitivty of the equipment nowadays is that if the coin was handled by the edge by someone who had dipped a couple coins, but not that one, it would probably still read as positive for dipping.
So, you run it through a GC/MS and identify a chemical compound found in coin cleaner. What does it prove? That maybe your a "dip" for being duped?
Anyone with enough money to keep a gas chromatagraph on the garage workbench can afford to have three experts fly to wherever the coin is and examine it before making a bid.
will the grading services body bag a coin if its dipped? i thought they did... the reason i ask is that i have seen a lot of 50+ year old coin that are blast white in pcgs and ngc holders...
This comes with experiance, You need to learn "MINT LUSTER" this will help you from cleaned or dipped coins.Look at original coins.
I just said it was possible, I never said it was practical. When PCGS began they stated that they would NOT slab dipped coins. A few years later in a Coin World interview they made the comment that sometimes they dipped coins for clients. The hobby community, many of whom had received back bodybagged coins because they had been dipped, squawked. Loudly! This caused PCGS to issue a retraction stating that they had never dipped any coins and never would. But they couldn't explain why they had said in the interview that they did dip coins. After that PCGS was silent on the subject, but stories continued to come up from time to time about submitters who had gotten PCGS to dip their coins ( and a couple who got them dipped that DIDN'T ask for the service.) Eventually PCGS started dropping a hint here and there that they did dip from time to time, and that a dipped coins wasn't an automatic bodybag offense. Now today the official line is that a properly dipped coin that isn't harshly cleaned can certainly merit slabbing. They also claim this has always been true. I don't believe them, I remember when it wasn't true.
