I went to visit my brother who had back surgery last week. He asked me to look at his coin collection and give me his opinion. I told him that his collection was mostly junk silver with the exception of one coin, a 1921 Peace Dollar. Then I had to explain to him that the coin was a problem coin because of the scratches which hurt the value. Then I had to ask him who cleaned all of his coins, which he admitted to doing without hesitation.
Hope he has a speedy recovery! Is it an older or younger brother? I hope he didn't take your news too hard.
Bummer about the coin. Funny, you are what I would call a "high-end" collector (or former collector) and he is a low-end junk silver collect, all in the same family. You didn't rub off on him, huh? p.s. You bullion guys don't go and get offended, okay?
I hope your brother is recovering well Paul. As for the coin, well there are reasons why coin survivorship is lower than mintage, right? Its a shame, since I love the 21. Only year it was minted as the designer designed it. Maybe it was a problem coin before he cleaned is anyway, right? You never know. That big mark behind her head probably would have made it a problem coin anyway.
Well I bought one as a kid and knew no better and cleaned it, actually polished it. It looks nice but is a cleaned coin. Still I like it and I had to sell a lot of papers to get it....
As a kid, I was a coin cleaning fool. Remember the stuff you would put on a Buffalo nickel that was dateless....ouch.
I did the same thing when I was younger. I recall a "dirty" peace dollar my grandfather gave to me and discovered a pencil eraser worked great at removing the dirt. Thankfully nothing expensive was ruined.
