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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;ksparrow, post: 658650, member: 7638&quot;]on my &quot;cautionary tale&quot; thread, I tossed out for all to see my newbie buying mistakes from 2 or 3 years ago. I mentioned an 1886 nickel that was BB&#039;d by the &quot;old&quot; ICG for being cleaned. That coin appeared to have a sort of flat luster to it, but it was very hard to make out signs of cleaning. It occurred to me that maybe something was applied to the coin to conceal signs of cleaning?&nbsp; So, I gave it an acetone bath, and the somewhat golden coating on it disappeared, revealing the true extent of the natural luster, and a bunch of fine hairlines in the fields. I suspect this may have been an infamous &quot;putty job.&quot; In any case, here are my first photos of the coin, pre-acetone:</p><p><br /></p><p><img src="http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t277/cks2007/5c1886obv.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /></p><p><img src="http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t277/cks2007/5c1886rev.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p>Here we are post-acetone, including an image with the coin propped on a toothpick to help bring out the hairlines in the left obv. field:</p><p><br /></p><p><img src="http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t277/cks2007/5c1886acetoneobvtilt.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /></p><p><img src="http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t277/cks2007/5c1886acetoneobv.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /></p><p><img src="http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t277/cks2007/5c1886acetonerev.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p>What&#039;s sad is that this coin has intact luster on the bust, and a clean cheek. The hair is full of luster. This was, I believe, an MS or AU coin before someone decided to &quot;improve&quot; the fields with a fine abrasive. It&#039;s still not a bad-looking coin, except for the mark above star 12, but it was sold to me as &quot;BU&quot; for a &#039;bargain&#039; price by one of the large-scale sellers with those multipage CW ads full of pictures. You know who they are. </p><p>It is my understanding that auto body putty&nbsp; can be applied to a coin&#039;s surface to conceal marks and create an illusion of luster- or at least a kind of matte surface-- but it will not reflect light properly and under a strong light the concealed marks may become visible at the correct angle. So, be careful with &quot;key dates&quot; and stick to properly certified coins (when significant money is at stake) to minimize the risk of this sort of thing happening to you![/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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