I've been buying affordable raw cents on ebay for fun, and try to make sure that I know what I'm buying before I get it. The problem that I've noticed with a lot of early copper-nickel indians is that the vast majority floating around (95%+) seem to have an old 'cleaned' tone to them. I'm betting that a great deal of them were cleaned in the last 100 years, but after years of looking at just bronze coins I'm having a hard time determining what the color of a well-circulated copper-nickel cent should be. The ones that don't look cleaned appear to be a bit lighter in color than a bronze coin. It's deterred me from jumping in to purchase. Does anyone have any decent pictures showing uncleaned circulated copper-nickel indians? Should I be expecting a slightly different tone from one that is bronze? Below are some samples of what I'm talking about. Probably cleaned: http://www.ebay.com/itm/1859-Indian...43?pt=Coins_US_Individual&hash=item20cb24f7c3 Maybe cleaned??: http://www.ebay.com/itm/1859-Indian...53?pt=Coins_US_Individual&hash=item53eeae6ab1 Uncleaned??: http://www.ebay.com/itm/1859-Indian...37?pt=Coins_US_Individual&hash=item4abbe72fc1 I know, don't buy on ebay, examine coins yourself, blah blah. Ebay is like gambling. I'm just trying to get some tools so I can learn how to win more often. I figure I must be doing something wrong if I'm finding a TON of cleaned common CN coins but as soon as I move up to bronze the coins suddenly seem fine.
Well, I don't know if there is a "correct" color, because there is usually some toning on a 150 year old coin. In addition, not all cleaning is bad, it is just the harsh cleanings you should avoid. Well anyway, here is what a typical CuNi might look like IMHO. This one is graded MS-63 by PCGS OOPs, sorry, after I posted it I saw you said circulated. The only circulated one I have looks cleaned.
Not necessarily are you doing something wrong. Some of the AU type grades are where people like to try to make them MS. My recommendation is to go to heritage and look at some of the cuni IHC's they have in the AU/XF range - that should give you an idea of what they look like. And keep in mind the pictures from ebay may not show the true color of the coin or if they have been cleaned. If you really want some middle grade coins you can always buy grade coins and crack them out - just a thought.
