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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;cmbdii, post: 4594, member: 655&quot;]Silver kills all germs, viruses included.&nbsp; While I&#039;m no expert grader and don&#039;t even own any magnifiers stronger than 10x, the color of a coin usually gives it away.&nbsp;&nbsp; Circulation coins stored in rolls can be bright with full mint luster after being stored in rolls or bags under the right conditions for many decades, but most have shades of tarnish of various colors, most commonly shades of gray.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>&nbsp; When I see a Peace dollar which is perfectly bright, but it has little mint luster overall, I suspect that the coin was dipped.&nbsp; There are many natural shades of color that silver coins can have and still be original.&nbsp; It takes seeing a lot of them to start to get a feel for what&#039;s natural and what&#039;s likely to be artificial in coin color.</p><p><br /></p><p>&nbsp; In old commemoratives, one that&#039;s very white with mint luster visible will show the telltale signs of deep toning removed by dipping under 5x.&nbsp; There will be breaks in the luster everywhere the deep toning was removed by the dipping process.&nbsp; That&#039;s one indicator.&nbsp; I have a Stone Mountain half I bought which was dipped.&nbsp; &nbsp; I found it in an antique shop and didn&#039;t notice the breaks in the toning.&nbsp; Once I put it in the tray with two other examples of the same coin, the shade looked improbably bright.&nbsp; I can see the areas where the luster is gone and the surface is gray rather than bright silver. That&#039;s where the coin was deeply toned before it was dipped. </p><p><br /></p><p>&nbsp; I didn&#039;t see any of that when I bought the coin.&nbsp; It was kind of dark in the shop and what I mainly saw was the unworn detail of the strike and the low price of $20.&nbsp; I&#039;ll sell it for sure, but it will be described as a cleaned coin and won&#039;t bring the price it would if it weren&#039;t dipped.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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