This is the oldest of my silver dollars. I collected them about 45 years ago when I was a very young interested collector, not an informed one. Unfortunately all my silver was polished with a jar of my mom's "Wrights Silver Creme". I can't do much about it now so I am asking how much damage did I do and what's the best guess as to the value? Greg
How long ago did you polish it? It dosnt really seem to bad from the picture. Is it still really shinny in real life?
...disappointing there is no collectors value...just the value a melted blob of silver would command. I'm always going to keep it since I've already had it 45 years. Greg
BTW,... it is very shiny. I had to play around with the light angles to get one that showed the detail I wanted. Greg
I can't really tell from the photos whether or not the damage is severe. Assuming it is, you may want to "repair" the damage. I know it is counter-intuitive, but the coin needs some normal wear to restore it. If you carry it around in your pocket with some other change for about 6 months, the normal friction might wear off the polishing. What you will have left is a coin with a slightly lower grade but without the evidence of harsh cleaning. Coins were designed for this type of use and what you are doing isn't much different than the way most circulated coins become circulated in the first place. In the way of full disclosure, I don't think this method is approved by anyone except for me, but it seems to work for cleaned silver coins.
Thanx Cloudsweeper99, I'm amazed that a silver coin that to my untrained eye has a mirror-like finish and is 119 years old is worth the same as a chunk of silver. As a 12 and 13 year old, I wasn't savvy enough to know about such things a the destruction in cleaning coins. My next oldest is an 1892 and now I'm afraid to ask about any more. I'm just going to leave them to the kids and they can haggle over the value years from now. Greg
Chunk of silver my, uh, reverse. This is an improved chunk of silver. Somebody wants to give you melt for it, tell them go make one yourself for melt! I'd never let go of one of these for melt. It could fall in my garbage disposal, I could care less. That's a snow job, if I ever heard one, "melt" for one of these, just because it's been polished. Just my humble opinion, now; don't mean any offense...
I know you can, Doug. But I'd never sell one of mine for melt, unless I was really desperate. I'd give it away to a complete stranger before I did that. And yeah, I know what you're going to say, he'll sell it for melt. Gee, you know, you can't win around here.
Greg, you broke my heart with your story. Your Morgan to you and your family is priceless, but to sell it to a stranger is different, sorry.
Becky, I appreciate your honest opinion. I'm not coin savvy and probably never will be to the level of so many here. You keep doing what you did and offer up your honest opinion to anyone asking for it. ...certainly no hard feelings here and I am a little better informed. A large portion of what I have came out of the ground so they will never be of much value, but you know what,...the excitement level you get finding a 100+ year old coin with a metal detector would be like you getting a 1909 s VDB penny back in change....I think :thumb: Greg
