Hello, My dad got this coin about 18 years ago from a reputable dealer, and he says he has never cleaned them before and that they have been stored for the entire time in cases. We have one coin dealer in town and for some reason every single coin we take to him he says they are cleaned, so we really don't want to go there right now. Anyways, we were wondering if we could get someones input on the coins value, and if we should get it graded or not. Thank you, Tyler Osterholz
Honestly, that looks like a cleaned coin, its way to shiny/polished, does it have cartwheel luster? edit: just because the dealer 20 years ago said he didn't clean it, its still over 100 years old, plenty of time for someone before him to polish it.
I can see a haze in the fields which suggests at least a dipping. There's also some wear in the hairline, and the eagle's breast, but it does appear to be too shiny for it not to have been cleaned.
Seems like there is certain luster, but from this angle the coin looks cleaned. Try better photos. Also, hair above the ear shows wear.
My very uneducated opinion is that it was cleaned somehow at some point, maybe before the person your dad bought it from got it. As BU said, you can kind of see a little bit of the haze in the deeper recesses but the rest of the coin is very clean. It wouldn't be that way with an uncleaned coin. Also, it almost looks like there might be some very light cleaning scratches on the obverse.
This coin looks polished or whizzed to me. The coin just looks too shinny and it appears to lack the normal cartwheel luster. Perhaps this is just the photo, but from what I see...it looks polished. For the moment, lets assume that I am wrong and the coin is not polished or damage in any way. First, the coin pictured is an 1896, not an 1896-O. 1896 is a pretty common date. I also see what appears to be some wear on the obverse...so I would grade the details on this coin as AU. An AU 1896 Morgan is not worth grading IMHO.
