When I see 1800’s gold coins for sale (screen capture below), are these cleaned? I have many uncirculated 1800’s gold coins and they’re not this clean, in fact a lot of them have tarnished to a slightly darker gold patina/color through the years. Mine also have some blank around the edges of stars and dates. The image below is not like that. If you clean a gold coin to make the gold standout, do you lower its value like a copper coin?
Not sure what you mean, cleaning any coin is a bad idea. There is a difference between cleaning and restoration. I would advise you to post some photos or send the coin to a professional.
Gold doesn't change or tarnish in the same way you see from silver. You will see gold recovered from archeological sites that looks as it did a thousand year ago. Now minted gold contains a small mix of alloys and those alloys will tarnish. But gold doesn't.
Gold coins should not be sent cleaned. If that coin was cleaned there is a way that NGC can find out using special lighting equipment. Then they would give it a Details grade. Not a Mint State grade.
Cleaning coins is rarely ever a good idea. I have found it interesting, however, that the rise in precious metals values has wiped a lot of those premiums out. I sold a $5 Indian and 2 $2.5 Indians to a coin shop within the past several months. One of the $2.5 Indians had been cleaned, but I got the same price for it as the other due to melt being so high. Maybe one day it will again make a difference in price. The only difference I see currently is as a graded coin. It doesn't seem worth it to grade a coin that will only come back "details," but perhaps so if it is MS.
