Natural or man made?

Yeah, I've been calling it "marketing grading" for years. When I was on the PCGS forums I told them they ought to give away free balloons, everybody loves free balloons.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

They look like freaks, though. Nickels aren't supposed to look like that, I'm sorry. That one belongs in a freak show, not in any serious collection of nickels.

 

Good to know I can continue to count 'spin and 'tucky among the ranks of fellow iconoclasts who do not have the piercing hole between their nostrils from the ring.

 

Ah, the ring in the nose. Yeah, that's what it's like. Or, so I'm, um, told.

 

Thanks. As someone who's been sending in coins to NGC for more than a few years now, I guess I'm lucky to never have seen one. Then again, most of my submissions are post-2007, and I've only ever seen one "Details" slab, and that one no one I show it to believes it was ever cleaned, unlike NGC. I guess my mistake was sending in two of the same classic commem, and the other one was the nicer of the two. The nice one got a 65+, and the less nice one got BU details - improperly cleaned.

 

My personal rule of thumb is 10 seconds in full-strength thiourea is the lifetime limit for a never-dipped coin. Unfortunately, strike-to-strike and planchet-to-planchet differences are too great for that to qualify as a generalization. Perhaps a median. Trouble is, you never know how much of that has been used by a previous owner....

 

I'm kind of partial to a zero seconds in full strength anything rule. Plus I believe the acid used counts for a lot. Hydrochloric? Never. Citric? Oh yeah. Also not really a hot mix either. I never buy "commercially sold for coins" ANYTHING. I make my own concoctions from my own studies. One has to know the chemistry of coinage metals somewhat. It pays off in the end. But then again, I'm old enough to have owned a chemistry set, and still, barely, young enough to remember some stuff from it.

When I was in school, EVERY geek had an Edmund Scientific catalog.

 

That looks like a sticker on the originally submitted flip. Is that correct?

 

Cool, thank you muchly.

 

Back atcha.

 

So I guess since Doug has never given a "like" - he does not like anyone!

 

Moderators, I think this guy should be reprimanded, he just called me a "geek."

Actually, Kurt, I wish I still had mine. And my cowboy guns, and my lead army men, and...

 

My Benjamin Franklin pellet gun, my sling shot, a few flat rocks to try impress.
Wait that was me!

 

Did they not have to esplain?

 

Nah, it's subject to the rule of "WEDGE" - We Experts Don't Give Explanations.