Continuing to pore over, analyze, and photograph last week's eBay "pig in a poke", this time focusing on the roll or so of wheat cents it promised to include. When I got it, I saw right away that there were a lot of steelies, in really terrible shape -- rusted, roasted, and otherwise generally abused. I finally fished out maybe 40 or so; I'm thinking about (ugh) cleaning the worst of the rust off them, and using them to make local "take a penny" boxes more interesting. There were also a few novelty memorial cents, gold-plated or otherwise PMD'd -- and these five other cents. First one I turned up: I was pretty surprised -- yeah, it's a bit abused, but not the sort of thing I expected to find in a lot like this. Oh, yeah, that five-attachments limit -- guess I'll break this into multiple posts...
Next, interspersed with lots of nickels and IHCs, these two: They've both led a hard life, and that 1910S looks like it's been busy as a zombie, but hey, legible dates.
After quite a bit more searching, I turned up this one: Had to stare pretty hard before I was sure that it was really a 24D, but it's pretty definite in-hand. The VERY LAST coin in the bottom of the bag was this hideous green lump: So much verdigris on the obverse, I could barely see that there was a date. I didn't even really want to pick it up; it looked like just about the worst of the bag. But I figured I'd try oblique light on it, and here's what I found: Alas, I found no SVDB or 14-D -- at least not in this batch. I can't imagine where this batch came from; I mean, it came from a seller who claims to represent a pawn-shop, but how did this set of culls fall in with a bunch of dateless Buffalos, bent IHCs and rusted-out steelies? In any event, I've also now obtained my first bottle of Verdi-Care, and I think this 31-S will be my star patient -- AFTER I practice on a number of commons.
BTW, BadThad, if you're reading this, I'd welcome advice on the best approach to using Verdi-Care (soak or swab?) on the 31-S, 10-S and 15-S...
I think it's WAY too far gone to be worth NCS treatment. Pretty sure there are pits under there; even if it ended up with F details, I don't think I'd ever be able to sell it for more than the cost of conservation + slabbing. I might consider that path for an SVDB -- but, again, it wasn't that good a lot of culls.
Those coins really look like metal detector finds. I'm not too sure there will be much you can do to restore them. Still a nice score and good luck!
I'm pretty sure you're right. There were quite a lot of other coins (large cents, nickels) that have that look as well. It struck me as weird, though, that I got all those junk steelies, these five semi-keys, and hardly any other common Lincolns. Almost makes me think the lot might have been searched, only in reverse...
