Getting creases out of paper money

My adopted daughter is Vietnamese. I was aware of the extraordinary beauty of French colonial notes, so I looked for a culturally significant note that I could give her that she would find interesting.
The note I settled on was part of an issue that almost always had two tiny pinholes. They existed because the packs were regularly sewn together, to prevent thieves from pilfering notes from the middle of the pack. A non-holed note from that series is unusual, to say the least.
The first note I bought had no pinholes. I'd never saw such a note without pinholes. I kept that note and found another with the usual two tiny pinholes to give her, which she was grateful to receive.
I felt a little guilty keeping the unusually original note, but then remembered that when I die, she'll get that one too.
She'll also get an embarrassingly large library of dirty DVD's. Whether she inclined to trash them, sell them or watch them, it seems discarding them in an unsuspecting dumpster beforehand will prevent many problems.

 

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I'll bet that a microscopic exam of the note will reveal the pinholes that were "closed" by the usual method that I am trying to learn about.

 

Got the note this AM in the post. Here are before and after of the fix with a dry iron technique.

 

I personally think anything a person does to a note is fine. People make a lot of money "restoring" paintings, if you research how that's done you start to realize it would even be O K to paint all over a note that lost color to make it look original again, as long as it looks right when you're done.

 

In Art restoration I have seen some things done that I would not do or like done to money. But simply ironing out a note or bending back bent paper is not changing a thing.

 

I wish it was legal to take a coin that was all worn out and restrike it to mint condition as long as you used only the original metal, and retained the same date and mintmark. There are some people that can hand draw a $100 bill that looks real, I just feel like it would be alright for those persons to "restore" an old note. I feel like ironing is way less obtrusive than that. Totally agree. And people keep saying paper money, but most notes aren't paper, just thought I might put that out there.

 

You remind me of a show I watched about 15 years ago of some guy who drew money US money and traded it as art for goods. He even got a Yamaha motorcycle. His name was JSG Boggs. I believe he passed away last month

 

I would have let him work on my 1899 $1 silver cert. If it needed it. All our bills will deteriorate to nothing eventually, long after we are deceased, so we better come up with a way to restore them reliably beforehand.

 

Now that is down right depressing right there.

 

Of course I was simplifying. There are all manner of ways, like the lack of the proper impressions that are a tell of the original gumming equipment being used. The point is a regummed stamp is worse than one with no glue, as most classic stamps are found, because collectors routinely washed off the glue in the past. Remember when paper money collectors had their notes "feathered"? I haven't seen any in years, so I presume somebody figured out how to "restore" them.
I make a point of not telling other collectors what to collect or how to do it. And you're right there is no central authority to say what's what. The fact that most individual notes are readily identified by series and serial number just makes it easier to follow a note as it transits from original to original-plus condition. That transition makes the transactor a load of money in a manner I think isn't ethical.
But what I think and $1 will buy me a bottle of water, so there you go.
I know my main dealer keeps meticulous records and has a phenomenal memory, plus he's as honest as the day is long. So I won't get an "improved" note from him without him saying it was improved, if he knows it was. He also speaks haggle. I like that.
Honor is in short supply today. I do suggest taking it where you find it. Someday your heirs will be selling all that stuff. You don't want them to belatedly realize that you were a sap.

 

Not to get off the note restoration thread, but most of the things said about currency can also apply to coins. One example is Silver Eisenhower Dollars in the brown box. They are famous for forming a haze on them because of the materials the government used to package them.

My dealer taught me to dip them for a few seconds, wash them in warm water, and blot them dry with toilet paper. It works great- haze gone and nice proof finish back again. I don't have a problem doing this, and I don't label the coin as having been dipped. It's a proof uncirculated coin to start with and the dip just removes the haze and returns the coin to it's original state. By the way, I would not dip any coin other than an uncirculated or uncirculated proof coin.

 

I think its on a case by case basis and what the owner is comfortable with. I know I just improved the value of my Confederate 50 no question. I did not change a thing but restore it to its original condition or shape.

 

I tried that with my wife. Bad idea.

 

Such is the fate of all flesh. All we are is dust in the wind. So are all our notes.

 

A coin is a hunk of metal, with an official stamp on it to certify its weight and fineness. When you own one, it's your property. You can put it on a railroad track and let it get flattened. You can clean it, graffiti it, counterstamp it, restamp it, do whatever you want, so long as you keep it.
So long as you do nothing to it as part of a scheme to commit fraud, or sell certain coins, like nickels, in bulk to be scrapped, do what you want with it.

 

"Dipping" is a tricky one. Many dealers will privately concede that nearly every 18th or 19th Century coin that looks freshly minted has probably been dipped at least once. Silver by its nature tones over time. Copper even more so. Even old gold will usually have a nebulous but detectable patina. Nonetheless, such coins, if otherwise MS-63 or something, will be labeled as such by even the most trustworthy TPG's as original, even though they know it is very unlikely that the surface is truly original.
When you add this to the near-universal consensus that removing obvious foreign material from a coin's surface is acceptable (take a look at some before and after shots of the double eagles salvaged from the wreck of the S.S. Central America), then clearly there is some leeway given in such matters.
One of many reasons for my preferred grade when seeking a coin is AU-58. As for toning, I think on many coins it makes them more attractive, and makes the design elements pop more. Some of my favorite coins are toned. I love Bust halves that clearly sat in bank vaults in kegs or bags for decades, only to be released in the late 1860's and 1870's, when banks had new, less clumsy means of keeping required specie reserves on hand.
They typically acquired a medium to dark tone during their hibernation, a bit of circulation rubbed it off the highest points, before somebody got one in change, realized it was old and funny looking, and put it aside.
Beats a shiny "original" MS-60 by a country mile aesthetically, and costs about a tenth as much.

 

Unlike many paper money only collectors, I've never been adverse to using watermark fluid on currency. If it doesn't hurt glued stamps usually printed on cheap paper, it certainly won't hurt a note printed on more durable paper stock. It will expose watermarks, as well as creases and filled pinholes. Advances in multi-frequency ultraviolet bulbs also allow for a less scary means of examination.
Besides, on the series I referenced, the needles used to bind the packs were usually corroded and corroding, and the tiny holes almost always are surrounded by a larger brown circle of discoloration.

 

I would only dip a coin that is new but has a storage defect, such as the Eisenhower Dollars I mentioned or some of the earlier Proof Coins that developed a haze from the packaging. I only dip for a ew seconds and then rinse the coin immediately in running water. I would never dip a coin to remove toning, I'm one of those collectors that will pay a premium for eye appealing toning. I also use acetone for PVC residue on coins. The coins are mine and if I want to engrave Mickey Mouse on them I can, the law says I own the coin and as long as I'm not trying to commit fraud I can do anything I want to it.

I own a man-made mule done by a machinist that is an artist. He hollowed out a Sacagawea Dollar, trimmed the reeding off a quarter and snapped the quarter into the dollar. The fit is so perfect you have to really examine the coin to see where the two fit together. He sells them as novelties and the government leaves him alone.

 

Yeah, but he's also going creating things that will eventually give people ignorant of its origins opportunities to dream in vain, and then take out their frustration on the dealer/collector who tells them their coin's a fake, or to mendaciously sell it as real to somebody who doesn't know better.
Little coin time bombs.

 

Have you even seen the "Mule" I'm talking about? No matter how good the machinist is, it is always going to be noticeable where the quarter snaps into the Sacagawea Dollar. I don't know many coins that have a grove were the quarter fits into the dollar. Plus the fact that there is a gold colored rim on the quarter side where they fit together. I said he was making a novelty item, not a counterfeit.