Hi, I just bought this 1893 columbus half dollar off of ebay. I spent 10 bucks on it. Im new to coin collecting but have been reading alot about it. I bought this coin knowing there wasn't much value if any, but really like it for some reason. I've been reading on how to spot cleaned coins and know it takes time and experience. But this one looks cleaned to me. Am I correct? Thanks in advance!
Images make it hard to tell but looks more like the coin circulated as many of this issue did rather than being cleaned. I can not see the usual hairlines all running in the same direction in those images.
By cleaned do you mean harshly cleaned ? There's a difference between the two. Either way, it's possible it has been harshly cleaned some time ago because I can see no signs of luster on the coin and the toning is not heavy enough to hide luster if there was any, and the coin does not enough wear to have removed all luster. So my guess is one of two things are true. Either the coin was over-dipped (which is harsh cleaning) at some point in the past and has since re-toned, or the pictures just aren't showing the luster that should be there on a coin with that little wear. Personally, I'm leaning more to the former.
