I am familiar with ways to tell silver cleaning. I feel like I’ve had a decent amount of experience to recognize a cleaned silver coin. However, cleaned copper is where I hesitate. There are obvious ones which I can recognize, but overall I am somewhat unsure. What are some pointers for recognizing copper cleaning? Also, is this one cleaned? Thanks in advance for your help!
Thank you for the second opinion. I was leaning towards cleaned, and you just helped me confirm that.
I trust the previous posters. I too have difficulty recognizing cleaned copper. In my mind cleaned copper tends to take on a pinkish hue.
Thanks for the replies! How much do you think this impacts the value? I’d say around 30-50% of the price of normal example.
I think it’s attractive even cleaned other than that one dark spot. it’s almost market acceptable from pics though hard to tell in hand. It wasn’t cleaned recently. As I said it’s recovering nicely and doesn’t have that pink cast anymore that fresh cleaned copper has
It has active corrosion. Whether or not it has been cleaned is irrelevant given the corrosion. Also, I don't think you can tell from the photos whether or not it's been cleaned, as the color balance might be off.
Except that it's got a big fat corrosion spot on it that is active and growing. Given the "virgin exposure" of metal, there could more corrosion spots in this coin's future.
This piece has a similar corrosion spot. Only one other piece (1 Stiver from Essequibo and Demarary) has any corrosion spots.
Copper experts, who are better than I, have methods to arrest this stuff. At any rate the coin will never get a straight grade because the damage has been done. This is BIG PROBLEM with cleaning copper. The "restorative process" is often not pretty. Years ago, I saw two PCGS certified Proof Indian Cents, in a dealer’s inventory, turn to dust in the holder. The submitter had dipped them to make them red again, and PCGS graded them. The trouble is the coin doctor had not gotten the dip off the coins, and it kept on eating the metal.
There are certain things that I look for on copper coins to detect a cleaning: Pale orange Pale purple Glossy orange Bright, lifeless orange Pink Black Dip some copper cents and see what orange I am talking about. It is easy to discern from original mint red. As for the OP coin, I think the lighting is overly incident on the coin, and it is original lustrous RB. The corrosion spot ruins the coin though.
I'm still looking for a 2-cent piece with a legible "WE" (that I can afford) - cleaned or otherwise...
Verdicare and a toothpick being careful will do a lot it’s gotten me a straight grade on some coins I doubted would
