Should I Dip It......

I'd leave it alone. Just make sure you keep it, along with the rest of your coins, in a cool, dry place (such as a safe) with some silica gel bags and you should be good.

 

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I think toing is a damage because you are cleaning a coin and the gives it a lot of wear. or else it is a chemical reaction

 

Actually, you just did.

 

He did not say it WAS damage, but that it can BECOME damage.

 

My answer is always the same. Don't dip. Don't clean with soap and water. Don't do anything but enjoy the coin. If you don't like the way it looks then sell it or give it away and get one that you do like. NEVER ever attempt to clean or enhance or preserve a coin in any way including (and especially) dipping. It's true that there are professionals or coin doctors that can remove tarnish/toning using dip but they also screw up a lot of coins. The average person should never do it. Using any kind of chemicals on coins is a no-no. Not to mention there may be a health hazard to breathing in the fumes from EZest and other cleaners.
Dont' clean coins. Honestly I think NGC should be ashamed of themselves for offering a service like NCS because all it does it encourage everyone to clean their coins. Another case of the almighty dollar being more important than the care of coins. Remember we are only temporary caretakers of these historical items. 100 years from now there'll still be collectors who want original coins and dipping/cleaning coins is robbing future generations of collectors.

 

no leave it alone

 

OMG! Perhaps this expert numismatist should look up the following words as they are used differently to describe types of acceptable and unacceptable degrees of colors/films/damage on our coins.

1. Toning.
2. Tarnish.
3. Oxidation.
4. Corrosion.

The rims of the coin are CORRODED! Toning is a thin film deposit. Corrosion is a black buildup that has destroyed the underlying surface.

Nevertheless, TJ's coin can probably be saved since mostly the rim and edge (?) are affected.

 

You are entitled to an opinion no matter how well thought out. Your excellent advice "never clean coins" if you are not experienced is great and we all should that it to heart.

NCS does not encourage ANYTHING except perhaps that you send your "problem" coins to them so they can make a lot of money!

Nevertheless, your remarks prove that you have no idea of the value of the coins NCS has conserved and saved for future generations. They have even worked on coins in OUR National Collection.

 

Please NO

 

Just curious, you think you could just work on the dark spots and not strip the luster from the center? That stuff looks pretty heavy to me. Please explain...

 

The ONLY thing a conservator touches on that coin are the rims and edge. If done properly the rims will stay fairly dark and smooth - the granulations will be removed and the coin will stay toned; yet more attractive. Then SELL THE SUCKER to a toning freak...LOL.

BTW, IMO the coin is a market acceptable Unc and not an AU.

 

The same National Collection whose coins were "polished to a high gloss" multiple times during the 19th century?

Ideas about conservation change over time, but surface damage doesn't fade. And any random reader here is a lot more likely to damage a coin than to "successfully conserve" it.

 

That's the one. Two famous former curators (now dead) scrubbed all the gold.

Better read the two posts above where collectors are encouraged NOT to try improving their coins. BTW, conservation is not polishing so your point is????

 

No, but a hundred years ago or more, polishing was conservation.

I can imagine that at least some of our contemporary state-of-the-art conservation practices will be viewed with horror 50 or 100 years from now. "You dipped this historic coin in acetone? Now we'll never be able to find enough DNA fragments on it to know for sure who handled it while it was circulating!"

 

I'd leave that puppy alone.

 

I've seen dark toning on graded Morgans and other silver coins. I know any toning is a level of damage, but is it possible you're overstating this damage? If his coin was left alone, one could admire it and its dark "toning" for decades. Perhaps the toning would creep inward so the rest started turning black. Then, we might have a more darkly toned coin over centuries. This damage you speak of, is it something we should be worried about hurting the coin millennia from now or years? I, for one, would rather have original coins than a whole host of dipped ones that look more alike

 

Well, I need to learn things I apparently don't know, then. To me, "damage" implies not being reversible, at least in a numismatic sense. Toning on silver - the specific topic being discussed here - is a simple chemical reaction which is subject to reversal via benign chemical reduction. Like it never happened. All you have to do is arrange for the coin to meet something which wants the sulfur more than the silver does, and methodology abounds on the Internet regarding how to make that happen.

If it is agreed that something which is easily reversible without trace (in most cases, and this coin cleanly fits the cases) is still "damage," I'll willingly change my tune.

 

I don't think more than a hundred years ago the practice of numismatic conservation actually existed. I have read that the conservation of painting and textiles was far more advanced back then. People only cleaned coins to make them pretty, not to conserve them.