uncleaned coins - the heydays

Discussion in 'Ancient Coins' started by frank008, Apr 14, 2019.

  1. frank008

    frank008 New Member

    Hi there!

    New member here with a question for the veterans of uncleaned coins:

    What do you consider to be the heydays/good ol' days/peak period of uncleaned coin collecting? Time period, price, what could be found in the lots back then, who did you buy from, etc.?

    Background: I dabbled with uncleaned coins back in 2004-2006, purchasing a few hundred in lots of 10-50, mainly off of eBay. Managed to get a dozen good ones to attribute and add to my collection and another 50 or so that looked promising but need extra work. (I still have a couple hundred super crusties soaking in olive oil from that time period.)

    Returned the hobby this winter, and perusing the discussion sections on a couple different sites it sounds like quality and availabity have decreased since the early 2000s.

    Anyways, I just wanted to hear some war stories from folks who have been around the hobby for awhile.

    Thanks!
     
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  3. Kentucky

    Kentucky Supporter! Supporter

    Welcome, we have a few people who clean them. I would be interested in their answers also.
     
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  4. johnmilton

    johnmilton Well-Known Member

    I have been buying coins from professional dealers since 1963. Cleaned or dipped coins were on the market then. In fact a lot of writers and columnists advised collectors to avoid toned coins. The reason given was that the toning hid problems and that it was harder to spot a rub on toned coins that were offered as “Uncirculated.”

    A lot of collectors only wanted white silver coins. Many of them avoided toned pieces. There are still some of those collectors around today. Dipping and cleaning are almost as old as the hobby, and for some items, like most ancient coins, it is necessary for attribution purposes.
     
  5. Kentucky

    Kentucky Supporter! Supporter

    I think he is referring to ancient coins...it would be fairly rare to find any that had not been cleaned other than those which are sold FOR cleaning.
     
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  6. David@PCC

    David@PCC allcoinage.com

    I have no idea when was the best time to find the best uncleaned lots, but I snagged around 10k of them from 2001 to 2010. I would regularly see Agrippa's and Marc Antony denarii in the lots I recieved from Germany. The highest quality were from the middle east, but were more expensive than the dollar per coin lots that were coming out of Europe. To put things in perspective, one dealer said he was offered unbroken batches of coins for 1 dollar per pound in the 50's but regretted not buying them.
     
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  7. panzerman

    panzerman Well-Known Member

    When getting TPG material, they will have dipping/ cleaning as a fault "details". Even hammered coins which where "clipped" back in the day, are listed as, "tooled/clipped". CNG will list all faults on their raw graded coins, ie: smoothing/ hairlines/ deposits....
     
  8. frank008

    frank008 New Member

    Good point. Yes, talking about uncleaned Roman coins generally...and whatever else might fall into the "ancient uncleaned coin" topic.

    I haven't found anything other than Romans in the lots I've purchased, but I'm only running at like a 10% or so attribution rate. Could have something Greek/Byzantine/Islamic, but those I put in the "I'm stumped" pile and reserve for later review.
     
  9. frank008

    frank008 New Member

    $1/lb, wow! That would be wildly pleasing now at a per coin rate if variety and quality was nice...and a time machine existed! Hindsight being 20/20 and all.

    The eBay lots I was purchasing 15 years ago were .50-$1.35/coin, and -- once you cleared out the junk -- was primarly FEL TEMP stuff. What I'm seeing now in small lots at $1.75-$4.00 per has some junk (<20%), but few FEL TEMPs and frequent radiates.
     
  10. arizonarobin

    arizonarobin Well-Known Member

    I'm not sure what the "heyday" would have been either. I started with uncleaned in 1999- and you could get some nice lots then. I still have many lots in the uncleaned state. Full sealed bags of larger types and hundreds of smaller lots from crusty to greek. I stopped buying uncleaned when I started focusing and have never gone back to it. :D There are secret stashes of uncleaned coins all over my house
     
  11. gsimonel

    gsimonel Well-Known Member

    I would say the heyday began within a few years after the fall of the iron curtain, when coins from eastern Europe started entering the market, and lasted for around 10 or 15 years or so. Back then I was buying bags of 1,000 coins for around $600-800. I was fining sestertii, dupondii and asses among the many antoninianii and LRBs. There were also a lot of smaller Greek bronzes in the lots. There was a lot of junk, too, but I could usually find 8 or 10 keepers for my collection, sell the rest, either as cleaned individuals or uncleaned lots, depending on how busy I was, and recoup my initial investment. By starting with a lot of 1,000, I could sell them very cheaply and still be confident that there were a lot of nice coins in every lot. Basically, I was doing it to get first pick out of the lot and for the free coins.

    Ah, the good old days.
     
  12. panzerman

    panzerman Well-Known Member

    Nice thing with gold coinage, no oxidtion, even coins salvaged from 300 year old wrecks are like the day they where struck. IMG_0065.JPG IMG_0067.JPG
     
  13. ancient coin hunter

    ancient coin hunter 3rd Century Usurper

    I was buying uncleaned lots a few years ago (2013-2015) but the main outlet I was buying from - 1/2 kilo for $370 or so has gone out of business, citing changes in export laws in the EU. I am not sure if it is getting harder to find coins or if in fact the legislation has slowed things down. Anyway, slugs and culls made up over 50% of the lots, with about 30% being very worn or crusty and in dire need of extensive cleaning, 10% showing immediate promise, and another 5%-10% not really requiring cleaning and being immediately attributable. Got some Provincial bronzes, earlier asses/dupondii (but all unidentifiable) and lots of late roman bronze from Constantine onward. Fel Temp types dominated. I would say the market appears to have shrunk - and anyway, I decided to focus on higher quality coins that are really collectible and may actually have some value at re-sale.
     
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  14. Suarez

    Suarez Well-Known Member

    From an uncleaned coin dealer's perspective I think the peak was 2004 give or take a year. At the time our "Dirty Old Coins" kit was being sold to National Geographic, a bunch of mail order catalogs and even Target. From what I recall we sold over half a million coins in a single year (I think it was '04). It was so much work that we had had to hire out a call center and a small army of temps.

    Good times but I don't miss it one bit.
     
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