Any opinions? 1914 S Lincoln

Here's another before and after rose thorns and oil. This coin wasn't in the worst shape per say, but felt it needed a little love. Wait for the second post before anyone posts. Any opinions on the grade. An AU 50 to me, or so.

 

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After treatment

This has Coin Care on it. I didn't dry it very good. Sorry for the shinny look. I ran out of compressed air.

 

Looks nicer to me!

 

Looked better before. Now you can see every little scratch.

 

OK, I am not a fan of cleaning coins, but one way I have always wondered about and I am not even sure most people would have a problem with it. A lot of people say they have rinsed their coins off with distilled water and say that is not cleaning. If you put some pressure behind that water, it will clean anything and everything off the coin without damaging a thing - kind of like pressure washing it. No harsh chemicals, no scraping, and nothing I can see like most people object to. If you are worried about it not being able to remove the difficult material, it is possible to get the pressure high enough to cut the coin in half literally (10,000 psi.+), but I would think that several hundred psi. should remove all types of dirt and probably less than 1000 would even remove such things as glue.

Any comments?

 

Interesting RLM. I have thought about that. Ultimately its a mechanical means of removal. I think NCS does not use mechanical means of removal. They only use chemicals and that is a mistake. If I sent this coin and my 1909 S IHC they would have chemically cleaned the coin and messed those coins up likely. Grime comes off easily by a rose thorn and oil. I think water at high pressures would remove harder stuff like verdigris but water at high pressure is denser and due to surface tension and speed would take on properties of being like little pebbles maybe? If you have a machine that does this try it on a low value cents with slow mo camera. Would be a cool experiement. Water Pic is like 50 PSI I think. That would work good potentially.

Coinkeeper: scratches look bigger because I didn't take good enough up close photos before the treatment. They were there the photos just don't show it. Any opinions on the grade anyone?

 

I like the after look of that coin, it has a really nice appearance. I would go ahead and call it an AU50

 

Water is incompressible and therefore at a fixed density. It does not change. However, it is like tornadoes driving straw into trees (they really do). Things do strange things when they have a lot of momentum.

I am not sure what pressures remove what. However, I would be pretty sure 50 psi. would do little. My city water pressure is 70 - 90 psi. Home units use a couple hundred psi. and do a good job cleaning dirt from concrete. We used to clean plastic gum (about the worst gunk the operators had seen) from reactors at about 1200 psi. I would think verdigris would be similar to the dirt side.

As an aside to this, all the info I have is at several inches to 2 feet from the items to be cleaned. How close would you want coins?

 

nice work! I would call it a 53.

 

Some of the jewelry guys have a machine that uses high pressure steam for cleaning.
Wonder what this would do to coins?

 

Gosh! It looks good second time around...
Hope it grades high..

 

Well, their normal materials are gold and silver. It cannot be that horrible, could it?

I have no empirical data for steam. However, I can give you some extrapolations;

For hard materials (verdigris, etc.), pressure would be the prime driver. Pressure = pressure.
For grease, high temperatures would soften. That being said, I cannot foresee any typical coin dirt that pressure washer pressures could not easily remove.

The problem I can see with steam is that reactions will be occurring 1000 to 10,000 times as fast just due to the elevated temperatures. Now, 10,000 times 0 is still 0, but does anyone really believe there are no reactions going on? How close to zero, I really cannot answer.

 

I woud say an EF45
JC

 

Is the coin not as shiny after letting it dry? Because to me the second coin does still look oily in spots. Just wondering what it looks like dried.

 

I really like your work on this one better than the 1909S Indian. I would rate it an EF-45. You've almost convinced me that cleaning can some times be a good thing.

 

I liked it better before the cleaning.
It lost it's natural look in my opinion.

 

I am generally not a fan of doing anything to coins to clean them, but I must say that this coin looks better! The black gunk that accumulates on so many Lincolns is unattractive. What was done in this case couldn't scratch the coin, and it did remove the gunk. The surfaces do not look disturbed and so the coin looks nice and original. I would never recommend this with a Red cent, but with an already brown cent, I see no harm.

 

great job on the cleaning! I think you did a great job. With these pictures I can't see any marks around the lettering and date. I wish you had of taken the picture at the same angle though.
From the first picture I would grade it high VF but in the second I grade it high XF.
Pictures make a ton of difference.
Great job. Maybe I'll post another one of mine soon.

 

Let me just add my opinion, for what it's worth, on "cleaning" or "cleaned" coins. Personally, I do not have a problem with "cleaning" a coin to remove dirt or goo or other foreign materials that have gathered on a coin over time if it does not change the original patina or surface quality (like using water, oil, CoinCare, acetone, etc.). If you dip, whiz, wire brush, use toothpaste, MS70, jewelry cleaner or other chemicals and material to lighten or brighten a coin and it removes the original patina and surface quality, then to me that is unacceptable "cleaning." I like to make the comparison to antique furniture - you usually can use a light oil to condition a piece of antique furniture, however, if you sand it down and refinish it (which removes the original patina), then that piece of furniture no longer has its original surface and will now be worth less than half of what it was before the refinishing. This is what I tell my customers who ask me about cleaning coins.

 

Mark H- I got to buy more compressed air this week. I will and rephoto. It will not look so oily. I will xylene it first and then reapply or not? We'll see. I photo'd it right after I took it out of the flip so it was probably oiled before I bought it I am guessing by the first pics (I didn't notice when I bought). It can be tempting to overly pat dry to remove the oil and that is a BIG mistake (to those tempted). You will likely scratch the coin. I pat dry with microfiber cloth very lightly (pressure with no friction).