cleaned 1875-s trade dollar

i picked this trade dollar up before i knew anything about coins,but i don't know how to judge the worth of it being cleaned.can anyone help?
Thanks

 

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Does the coin have a green tint, or is it just the image?

Cleaning really effects the coin value tremendously.

If you took this to a dealer you would probably get an offer somewhere in the neighborhood of $80 to $90. Of course, that is if a dealer was really in need of a Trade Dollar to fill a hole.

 

it's just the image.i had to scale it down to post.actually it looks pretty clean(no pun intended)

 

thanks for the quick response,
i just wanted to know how bad i was taken.i paid $150 for it.guess it could have been worse it i might have ended up with a fake.at the time i just wanted to have a trade dollar!

 

Bid for an AU piece would be near $200. So from the standpoint of condition you didn't do all that bad. It is the cleaning that killed the value. Now depending on how bad it looks, I would suggest crossing it over to Anacs for a net grade. That could help some. A valuable lesson is priceless. If you learned from the experience, it is well worth the price paid.

 

Cleaning may be the least of your worries.
There are probably more counterfeit Trade dollars on the market, than there are genuine ones.
Here's a link that may help you determine if your's is real. Pay close attention to the detail in Liberty's hair, as well as the eagle's eye.

LINK

Here's a fake that is being offered for sale:

LINK

 

if i send it in do i take it out of the holder?also do i tell them that it was cleaned?i have a couple Morgan CC GSA's do they grade those in the govt holders?

 

In this case, I might ask for a crossover in the current holder; here's why.

As Jody mentioned, Trade dollars are VERY heavily counterfeited, particularly in Asia. If ANACS returned the coin to you as a fake, presumably it would still be in its current PCI holder. With the note from ANACS that the coin was a fake -- AND the coin in the same PCI holder as you received it from the seller -- any halfway reputable seller will guarantee authenticity unconditionally for life. And if you bought from a reputable seller, you should be able to get a refund if the coin turned out to be a fake. If this was some "estate sale, I know nothing about coins, no returns, good luck" eBay auction, you may not have that recourse.

If you crack the coin out before submitting, you have no real evidence that it's the same coin you purchased. And many dealers would understandably balk at accepting a return. There's a reason why most return policies require that coins be returned unopened in the same holder they shipped in. Too many con artists could take swap coins and take advantage otherwise.

Normally I "crack out" and submit raw when I want to get coins out of "disrespected" slabs. But when I suspect damage to a coin that would send it back in a "bodybag", or if it's a coin that's heavily counterfeited or faked by alteration, I'd send it in the slab for a crossover.

 

I absolutely agree with Ziggy. I think that breaking it out could only hurt you if you are hoping to have the option of returning it if it comes back graded as non-genuine.

 

here's a closer look at the hair and the eye i don't have a close up of a real one to compare it to.

 

Unfortunately, looking at the close-ups, I think yours might be a counterfeit. It looks like there are two holes in the bun and the entire eagle's eye is clear. Since I don't deal that much with Trade Dollars, hopefully someone with more experience in this area will respond.

 

Really too hard to tell in by the photo. Leave it in the current holder and submit it to Anacs. If it does turn out to be counterfeit, then you can go to the original grading company and recoup the loss. I would be a little surprised if PCI slabbed a counterfeit though. While their grades are off 90% of the time, they do know their coins. I use them frequently for the purpose of "authentication" at the shows.

 

thanks i'll do that.do you know if they grade gsa morgans in the govt. holder?

 

I have heard that same PCGS rumor. It was not in effect as of the ANA show. No date was given to when that would go into effect, but looks like the rumor is true.

 

Here's a pretty big picture of the reverse of a Trade dollar that is supposed to be genuine.

Notice how the pupil of the eagle's eyeball is incuse. In other words, there is a small dent or hole in it.


LINK


Would you say your's is the same way. or is the eyeball solid without an incuse pupil?

I'm pretty much like Susan, I don't know a lot about detecting Trade dollar fakes, but I do know that at the very least, it needs to be weighed
It should weigh approximately 27.22 g.

 

Would you say your's is the same way. or is the eyeball solid without an incuse pupil?

mine does have a hole in the eye but, the the ring around the eye is flattened and worn so it's hard to tell,i can take it to work and zoom up to 50X on it and maybe i can tell better.i can't weigh it unless i had a empty holder.i do have a couple other pci slabs i might break out one of those.
thanks for everyones help!
Brian

 

Why are there so many counterfeit trade dollars?? I would like to own one but its just too dangerous unless
its certified by a 3rd party.

 

True, but in this case, it's more region-specific than that. If it were just a matter of faking the most popular coins, in Asia they'd be faking 1877 and 1909-S VDB cents, 1916-D dimes, 1901-S quarters, 1893-S dollars, et cetera.

But because Trade Dollars were circulated in the Orient -- indeed, that's where they were intended to circulate when minted -- they became the popular old coins that everyone locally wanted to collect. So there may be "contemporary" fakes (of lesser quality, usually, being 120 years ago) to just pass off as a real silver coin, and "collector" fakes to sell to unsuspecting collectors. Some guys on eBay, as I said before, seem to make a living off of selling counterfeit, non-silver junk for $10-$40 on each sale. And the sad thing is, a lot of buyers probably think they're ripping off the seller who just has no idea what that 1877-S Trade Dollar (one of the most commonly faked dates) is worth.