I started collecting about 2 years ago and fell in love with many coins and denominations. I purchased a shield nickel some time back and thought it was nice enough to send in to NGC. It came back Improperly Cleaned, Uncirculated Details. There are no cleaning marks but the coin has a light yellow to light blue to light purple rainbow toning to it. My question is "should I have known a nickel was dipped or cleaned because of the rainbow toning?" I will try to post a photo of the coin.
Not a great photo to show toning, but light yellow to light blue to light purple rainbow toning I enhanced the coin toning in photoshop a bit too much, but wanted to convey the colors more than I was able to photograph.
The coin has the typical blue and yellow hues so common on nickels. AT or NT, who knows, but if submitted again I think that coin will eventually end up in a problem-free slab.
The toning might be a bi-product of the cleaning. However, even without the toning, the overall appearance of the coin shows a cleaning. My point is, I'm sure it wasn't bagged because the toning tipped them off about a cleaning. So to answer your question, you shouldn't have known it was cleaned because of the toning. edit: Here is my shield, with rainbow toning. I do not believe this has been cleaned. But who knows, maybe PCGS may disagree. We will never know! NEVER I SAY!
gbrobe, nice photo, nicer coin!! So toning can be natural on nickel and not just silver. I imagine some colors are a dead giveaway of cleaning or dipping. I will be playing with my camera for better photographs.
Oh yeah, toning occurs on any type of metal. It's more about the storage, air, and other factors. Not the composition. As far as there being colors that are a dead giveaway for cleaning, the answer is no. Identifying a cleaned coin really has nothing to do with toning. They are two different things. A cleaning will generally remove luster, make the overall coin an 'off' color, give it a polished look, or show hairline scratches. That's not to say a chemical used in a cleaning wouldn't cause some toning. You just can't identify the cleaning from that toning. Hope that makes sense. When you're talking about colorful toned coins, it's more about whether the toning was created artificially (AT) or naturally (NT). The TPG's will bag a coin for AT as well. That wasn't the case for your coin though. Just to confuse you even more: Many coins have been cleaned, and in fact was pretty common and accepted. Since that has changed, many older coins, will be artificially toned to try and cover up the cleaning. -greg
