Do you Consider a Dipped Coin to Be Cleaned?

There's two concepts here that everybody needs to get into their heads. All metal corrodes folks, it is the very nature of metal to do so. Take steel or iron for example, corrosion on it we call rust. And when steel rusts, whether it's a battleship or the tools in your garage, the rust must be cleaned away and removed else the item become useless and eventually completely destroyed.

Now a little bit of rust on the surface doesn't really hurt anything, you know that and I know that. But we both also know that if we leave it there it's going to become a very bad thing before too long. I think everyone here at one point in their life or another has seen a car or truck where rust has eaten holes right through the metal ! That is the effect of corrosion. And it happens with all metals.

This idea or concept is the very premise for Weimar White's book. In his opinion any and all toning is corrosion, he out and out calls ALL TONING damage. And he promotes dipping all coins that have toning on them.

Now the numismatic community as a whole thinks Weimar White is a nutcase. Not because he says that toning is corrosion - everybody knows that it IS corrosion. But because he says that all toned coins are damaged and must be dipped. What most people in numismatics think is beautiful White sees as ugly and damaged.

At the same time, everybody in numismatics, or at least everybody that knows anything, recognizes and agrees that toning can be and will be harmful to coins if it is allowed to progress beyond a certain point. They also know that it cannot be stopped, it can never be stopped. The very best that you can ever hope for is to slow it down as much as possible. And the only way you can do that is with proper storage.

So what's really going on here with the words toning and corrosion ? It's the very same thing that's going on with the words clean and conserve. In both cases they both mean the exact same thing, and in both cases one word is nothing more than euphemism for the other. And both words, toning and conservation, have come about and been adopted for use by coin collectors because they don't like the negative connotation that is attached to the other 2 words - corrosion and cleaning. It's really just that simple. That is what euphemisms are and why they are created and used - it is their very purpose in language !

All of this is factual - 100%. It's not a matter of opinion or what one chooses to believe or not believe - it's fact plain and simple ! Every single bit of it has been proven over and over again by actual experience and by science - every bit of it ! And anyone who chooses not to believe it is doing nothing more than fooling themselves.

As for dipping, do I recommend it on any and all coins ? Not only no but hell no ! But I do strongly, urgently even, recommend it when it is needed to protect a coin from certain destruction. And make no mistake, destruction is absolutely certain if toning/corrosion is allowed to progress unchecked.

 

Show ya ? Show ya what, pictures ? And if I did what would that prove to you ? I'm betting I could show you a hundred pictures and you still wouldn't believe it. You'd make all kinds of claims that the coins were stored improperly - or something. That if they had been stored properly it never would have happened.

Well ya know what ? You're right ! It doesn't happen, not in a lifetime, when coins are stored properly. But there's one small problem with that. Proper storage methods have only existed, and been practiced, for less than 50 years. And for the first part of that 50 years they were only practiced by a small, very small, minority of the collecting public.

Now then, how may Morgans do you know of that are less than 50 years old ?

Silly question, stupid question even ? No, but it was asked to make a point. The point being that prior to the late 1960's NOBODY stored their coins properly ! The single most common storage method was 2 1/2 x 2 1/2 paper coin envelopes. And yes. that paper was absolutely laden with sulfur. The send most common storage method was cardboard coin albums, or cardboard coin folders, also absolutely laden with sulfur. Even the US Mint issued their annual Mint Sets and Proof Sets in sulfur laden cardboard. Other storage methods back then also included sulfur laden cardboard 2x2s, and coin rolls, let's not forget coin rolls. And oh yeah, they were all, every one of them, laden with sulfur.

Now of course today, all of these storage methods still exist and one or the other are used by the majority of coin collectors. Even today ! Very few collectors utilize proper storage methods.

Bottom line, almost every older coin there is was at one point in its life, and probably for most of its life, stored in a sulfur laden environment. With absolutely no thought ever even given to controlling temperature or moisture.

So these coins that you asked about - "that’s NOT been exposed to adverse conditions." - there pretty much aren't any that exist that have not been exposed to adverse conditions. In fact almost all of them spent most of their lives exposed to just about the worst conditions they could possibly be exposed to. And today, the majority of them still are !

And again, these are facts, not opinions. And yet you wish to believe what you believe ??????

 

Well we're certainly in agreement on that much ! And of course that includes what they tell their customers about the grades of their coins.

So your point, and my point, is that they lie to their customers. But ya know what, they don't lie about everything. They don't lie about the authenticity of coins, if it's a fake they tell you it's fake - at least when they know when it's a fake. And, they don't lie about dipping the coins either. They know for an absolute fact that it's a good thing when it needs done. And it's only been a few years they have even offered this cleaning service that they charge you for. But that doesn't mean they didn't know about it years ago. They have always known it - everybody has. And in fact they even did it years ago - but they didn't charge you for it back then ! They just went ahead and did it ! Matter of fact there's still one TPG who STILL does do it for free !

Now I suppose you want proof that too, huh ? Well OK, how about this ?

PCGS and NGC Dipping Coins

The Professional Coin Grading Service and the Numismatic Guaranty Corporation
have confirmed that they have been dipping coins upon request. The coins are
not marked on the slab as cleaned.

References: Numismatic News, 8 Aug 1995, p. 1; Coin World, 18 Sep 1995,
p. 1, 7.

Please make note of the dates for those publications, just 8 and 9 years respectively after the companies came into existence. And at the same please realize this knowledge was know for some years before those publications. But there was so much talk about it at the time that the leading numismatic publications decided to ask the TPGs directly and have them confirm what everybody already knew.

Bottom line, they've always done it. And not only that, it was way beyond commonplace long before anyone ever even thought of creating the TPGs.

 

You don't have to wait anywhere near that long, not even a tiny fraction of that long, to see changes in the toning. If you took before and after pictures under the same light and same settings you could see the changes in just a few years. but people don't notice the changes because they typically look at their coins a regular basis, and by doing that they don't notice the changes because they happen so gradually.

Anybody who thinks that coins don't continue toning, even with proper storage, just consider all the slabbed coins there are that have noticeably changed in a relatively short period of time.

I myself have taken ASEs fresh from the mint. Placed each one in an Air-Tite holder, then put them inside a tupperware container, and stored them with all my other coins. And yes I used silca gel packs. And in just a few months they toned, and very noticeably so. Each and every one of them had purple toning around the edges. And bear in mind, this was in Utah, the second driest state in the country !

I have been promoting proper storage on this forum for as long as this forum has existed. And I did it for years before that on other forums. And for years before that before any coin forum existed, before the internet existed.

As long as there is air that can get to the coin - toning never stops, not ever ! When you get right down to it it's physics and chemistry - not exactly things you can argue with. No matter how much you wish to believe otherwise.