Milk Spots- Are They Such a Big Deal?

BAJJERFAN - the sodium is not important its just the chloride and sulfur reacting with the silver. Like I told desert gem its round and round with some unknown variables since the step by step mfg. process is unknown. In any case I will post a coin I recently posted to another chat room of a SEM/EDS spectrograph. It will show alot but Material Analysis takes time to learn and often confuses most newcomers. Yes the White book - Coin Chemistry. His focus was primarily at sulfur and showing sulfur compounds are the primary culprit of toning - in his mind toning is PMD ... I am convinced these milk spots are AgCl based on previous data and its probably PMD - atmospheric induced phenomenon (i.e., sulfur and chloride) after the pieces leave the mint. Hopefully my new book in 2017 will help alot of people appreciate Material Analysis more with coins as did the Metallurgy in Numismatics series did awhile back ...

Tonight with some coin & SEM/EDS photos ... stay tuned. We can then argue ... LOL.

JPL

 

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I don't think there is any NaCl in the moisture in the air since NaCl is not volatile. Also, can EDS detect chlorine or chloride? I thought EDS was for metals.

 

Salt spray from da ocean. IIRC, they say it can be detected as far as 50 miles inland. I can't imagine that it would react with silver even if it was on there.

 

As some of you know I collect contemporary counterfeits. SEM/EDS analyzes all the elements in the periodic table. Here we have the typically seen surface contamination of sulfur and chlorine. Normally below Sc we consider these organic type elements and above Sc - metals. Just a cut-off since XRF normally analyzes only above Sc. S & Cl are both " always (i.e., 99%)" seen on the surface of a coin once it makes its way into circulation. This is a silver wash over copper host contemporary circulating counterfeit of the famous 1861 Confederate Half Dollar.
My point desert gem - these high alloy silver pieces are almost always picking up chlorine and sulfur as you know IN CIRCULATION - hence AgCL. Most discussions and very good ones I might add have been with the W.White Coin Chemistry book following of sulfur and toning and that great A-Z of Sunnybrook postings in 2009 - quite marvelous. OK - fire your questions - its not like I don't have a 400 page Material Analysis Numismatic book already written due out in 2017 - LOL.

John Lorenzo
Numismatist
United States

 

Absolutely keep it proprietary secret, patent it and then sell your formula for millions. I have a friend who developed a better cold plate for Coca Cola to drop the temp of cans in machines and spoke to a manager about it. He got a cold hand shake on the way out the door when he hurt his backing lifting one of them. never saw a penny for his invention. And he had never signed a contract with his company about new inventions.

 

Other than someone who paid a ton of stupid money for an ASE, who would use the service? They are as common as dirt and most people would just find an unspotted example. It was costing PCGS a ton of money to fix or replace the problem coins under their guarantee. Frankly, I do not think that PCGS would submit a customer's coin to another party and reslab it upon return. Once it's out of their control, all bets are off. If a customer submitted a PCGS graded and slabbed coin to you or me for restoration, how are either of us going to get it back into a PCGS holder for him? Aint gonna happen.

 

Who? Same people who use any grading service for authentic or conservation or a stickering company (CAC, Wings)-- it's a lucrative and subjective field that many people scoff at but which nonetheless attracts adherents and becomes accepted by the industry over time and PCGS at one time thought it was worth paying someone for their solution to claim it for their own services apparently.

 

This is not necessarily specific to this conversation. You make rather general comments. Had you told Krispy something like (just for example. These statements are not accurate) "milkspots are oval. These in the picture are circular" " the toning is three shades too tan" or some other technical explanation I think you would have had a different result. With the cow vs horse it seems simple to you but not to many here. Is it too much for you to tell us the neck angle of the horse is different, the head shaped differently and the tail longer? It may just be simplistic but not everyone here has the knowledge base to instantly differentiate between a cow and a horse. myself specifically.

 

PCGS spent a lot of money fixing/guaranteeing issues that weren't of their doing. When the mint finally owned up to being the source of the spotting as an artifact of their production process, PCGS dropped spot coverage from their grade guarantee. I'll ask you again. If someone sent you or me a coin, say a silver eagle ms70 First Strike that they foolishly paid $5000 for on eBay because it was the first one, who is going to get it back into the PCGS holder that we took it out of in order to clean it?

 

And we get pollen from the desert 100 miles away when the Santa Anas blow.

 

Like yellow rain and bee chit?

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1989/12/9/harvard-prof-honored-for-yellow-rain/

 

Actually I was just commenting on how particulate matter can be carried by winds.

 

I figured that since pollen spots aren't an issue with coins. Then again, salt spray mist is not the reason that silver eagles get milk spots either. I know that you aren't claiming that it does, but others are suggesting that it could be.

 

Hogwash! What the numismatic community thinks isn't proof. I can't believe you subscribe to that kind of mentality what with your stubborn elitist manner. You just keep twisting and trying to squirm your way out of this but it's not working.
Who is the other member you referenced your image from? Why not give them credit for identifying what may be milk spots. Where do you come off with these rules on milk spots such as, "Milk spots are identified by the way they look"? That's absurd, man! This is just more of your bull-talk. It's unfounded that shape is how one determines the condition. Just because you can't open your mind that a non circular mark on a coin may be related does not mean your assumptions based on shape are true. A lot of people used to think the world was flat, and other natural phenomena were omens, when all of it was just, hogwash!

You've now tried to portray others in this discussion as unreasonable and idiots. Good job, Mod.

 

TPGs will put anything in a holder and anything you want on an insert if you pay them enough to do it. They are in business to make money, not turn it away. Once in a holder, there are any number of outlets poised to market it to collectors blind as sheep ready to consume it.

 

If you are so damn right, show him some proof! Else wise, I just wish the both of you would hang it up.

 

You've been there and done that, amirite? I'm talking about a coin already in a PCGS holder. If you crack it out, dip it or whatever and send it back to PCGS they are gonna reslab it with an identical insert NQA No Questions Asked?

 

It's not on me and not my claim that I'm right about anything related to milk spots other than that I'm right about Doug withholding that which he claims to know and not divulge by his assertion he knows what others do not. It's on him to prove anything to support his claims as well as to whether he actually possesses any worthy knowledge on the subject and furthermore why this debate has sustained. And no one's making you read this so move along if you find this discussion not what you expected.

 

No one is going to do anything until or IF the milk spot condition can be conserved and whether or not it makes an affected coin more market acceptable and thus more likely to increase its resalability making a service more than a novelty to a firm like PCGS with a potential stake in this game. FWIW, coins are cracked out and sent for review or cleaned and resubmitted or even crossed over everyday by dealers seeking better grades and exceptions to TPGs initial assessments to squeeze more and more out of coins already holdered or with grades they wish to challenge for a chance at profits.