Help with Grade of 1915 Eagle

I definitely concur with the consensus 55 grade.

However, I don't think it was cleaned. Those marks don't look like cleaning hairlines - they look like circulation and handling marks. I'd expect cleaning hairlines to generally be longer, and parallel. The marks I'm seeing are short and semi-random.

The term "slider" comes from exactly the motion described: a coin sliding on something. Often, this would be a velvet storage tray, or a drawer in a coin cabinet. The coin didn't really circulate, it doesn't have wear, but it has some friction on the high points due to being slid in an out of a drawer or envelope or something. This is a complicated and controversial topic so I don't really want to get into it here, but that's where the term actually came from.

 

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I thought one of the possible origins of the term "slider" came from the marks on a coin left by those albums with the clear sliding plastic covers? Very similar to the "cabinet friction" explanation.

I have also seen it used in commercial settings to describe a coin that might be between grades.

 

I blew up the left and right reverse fields along with those portions of the eagle. I think it pretty clearly shows the lines in the fields and devices. As much as I would like it to not be cleaned, reality bites.

 

Forgot to post the photos.

 

I'm still not convinced those marks are from cleaning. They just don't feel like it, to me.

Gold is a very soft metal, so almost any friction will cause marks and hairlines. These feel a lot more like circulation marks than intentional cleaning.

 

In regards to the slider conversation, here is one of my favourite threads of all time related to the subject: https://www.cointalk.com/threads/the-secret-to-collecting-key-dates-the-elusive-au64-slider.41621/

In regards to the coin, teamwork makes the dream work, and AU55 is definitely the right call. Now as for if it has been cleaned--I'm not sure if it matters. This series is notorious for deep gouges and excessive scratches (as has been alluded to by @physics-fan3.14), and I've seen far worse examples in both PCGS and NGC holders. I don't think the markings on that coin change its value, and I'm sure there are some collectors who would purchase that as a problem-free AU55 example.

I think it's likely been cleaned, but am curious about one of your points @physics-fan3.14; if I had no knowledge of numismatics and was cleaning a coin, I think I'd be moving my tool in more random directions than carefully in parallel, but then again when I was young my mother would get irate with me for not coloring inside the lines.

 

Think about the motion you make when scrubbing a pan. Most of us scrub several times back and forth in the same direction. Very few people take one pass at one direction, then the next in another direction. Most of us would also make a scrub across the entire coin - the lines generally cover a wide part of the coin in parallel lines. Now, you might rotate and scrub again in another direction - but you're going to go back and forth several times in the same direction.

You wouldn't see short, light marks in multiple directions on a coin like this which had been cleaned unless it was an *expert* cleaning very, very carefully.