I have purchased several lacquered coins about a year ago before I knew enough to spot them. Spotting such coins by photos can be tricky IMO. Unfortunately I do not have good before photos of the 1911 D, but trust me the scratch on the obverse was absolutley not there as well the scatch on the reverse by the ONE and the scratches below that. It took over 150 hours of soaking in xylene and/or MEK (maybe more) to get the coins to this level. It seems xylene works the best to me, but MEK and acetone worked too. I eventually left outside in sealed glass jar to heat up the xylene as it takes to long when it is cold. Can be explosive at a certain elevated temp so make sure you look up on the MSDS if you try this. Hopefully this is educational to others. I did not get all the lacquer off as the scratches looked deeper and worse and I couldn't bear the coins getting any uglier. PS- the manage attachments only allows 5 photos at a time. So don't post until I get the second post up.
Part 2 after more soaking in xylene This coin had absolutely no significant scratches when I bought off ebay. I bought off a power seller. Contacted him about 9 months later and to discuss and the seller was not very nice about it. I knew it was way out the warrarenty period, but want to return for a partial credit or work out something fair. Anyway, any thoughts or similar experiences are appreciated.
fwiw my advice is to stay away !!! as far as possible if u already own the coins and they are valuable sell them and buy replacements or NCS here we come
I have bought 5-7 of them off eBay. Either bad luck or I was really dumb and fooled. That's why I posted so people could see what a lacquered coin looks like and they don't get fooled like me. I put most of them in my Lincoln album and hope the scratches tone and simmer down.
At times we all get fooled by our "thirst" to have what we hold dear to us in our hands! I too learned the hard way when I collected coins. That soon ended when advice was given to me from a Friend to this day, about knowing who you are buying from! Yes we are all subject to being fooled, even the so called "professionals" as I recently (within the last year) purchased a note believed to be CHCU by a well respected Dealer and Author, to find out it was not. He offered to buy back the note, but I declined, chalking it up to experience just like you. So sometimes, even if you know who you are dealing with, it may not turn out like you expected, that is one of the reasons I buy graded pieces now and hey, even a few of those have been wrong too! AT least they are backed by the grading company and refunding is easier! Thanks for a great post, I am sure the coin folks appreciate it! SGR
I am suprised more haven't posted on this. I can't be the only one whom this has happened to. I have had to watch in horror after long soaks to see big scratches on every coin I suspected of lacquer and was right. Lacquered to hide damage to nice coins.
I thought there was a time people put lacquer primari;y on copper coins as a preserative/protector many decades ago. I may be wrong, but I thought I remembered reading this years ago when I first started collecting IHCs.
This thread deserves a direct and " expert " opinion, I am far from the expert level, but I will offer one anyways. I am fading fast, it is after midnight here. I will step in with my thoughts soon. Good thread, one that we can all learn from.
You are far from being the only person this has ever happened to, but you are probably one of the few who post about it. Most don't like to post about their mistakes. And the mistake was not in removing the lacquer - it was in buying the coins to begin with. And the lacquer may have been used to hide marks, but that most probably was not the intention. It was just a secondary effect from using it to begin with. Absolutely, it was quite commpon at one point in time for collectors to lacquer their coins. It was no different really than some of the things people do today. For as long as people can be convinced that if they do "this" or "that" that their coins will look better or stay protected longer - you can bet that some of them are going to do it.
ah i made the right choice, you do not know the value of something rill you miss it. sadly all good things come to an end
The bad part about lacquer to me is trying to remove evenly. This stuff is stubborn and one part of the coins (I have only posted one coin here because I do not have a good series of pics throughout the stages) get the lacquer removed and the other parts still have it on. So what happens is the area of coin with the lacquer off starts to get fried and all dried out. Toning eventually starts to be removed in that area with prolonged soaking. Uneven toning and new scratches start coming out. All coins have some natural oils. The end result is the coins gets uglier the longer you soak it. Very depressing. And yes, GD. I have no problem owning my mistakes for the benefit of others. I always say to my employess at work that " all of our problems are like a big sign on our forehead- everyone else can see them but us, until we look in the mirror". This is not a coypywrited saying :kewl::goofer::goofer: so use at will. Just a bossism
I should add the tricky part of all of this is to tell when all the lacquer is off. This requires skill. One thing you can do is put a finger print on it wipe off immediately with mineral or olive oil, unless the coin is a high end coin don't do. All my lacquered coins were scratched so it didn't matter. Your fingerprint will not stick to a lacquered coin. Lacquered coins are very smooth. This is how I have determined all was off. Just my own personal observations
