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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;-jeffB, post: 3945120, member: 27832&quot;]A cent shouldn&#039;t be that color unless it&#039;s completely uncirculated. If it&#039;s uncirculated, it will show <i>mint luster</i> -- patterns of bright reflection that rotate and move as you rock the coin back and forth under a light. It looks very different from the flat sheen of a coin that&#039;s been polished. The next time you get some brand-new 2019 cents, look at them under a light, and you&#039;ll be able to see what luster looks like.</p><p><br /></p><p>Other marks of cleaning include areas of parallel scratches on the coin. Sometimes these are too fine to see with the naked eye, but when you rock and turn the coin under a light, the patch will light up when you light it from some directions, and not from others. It looks very different from luster, once you know what you&#039;re looking for.</p><p><br /></p><p>You&#039;ll also sometimes see a <i>halo</i> around the fine details on the coin. The person polishing it didn&#039;t push hard enough to reach those areas, so they still have luster, but on the rest of the coin it&#039;s polished away. Seeing halos doesn&#039;t <i>always</i> mean a coin is cleaned, but it&#039;s a red flag.</p><p><br /></p><p>In fact, you might take a few of those shiny new 2019 cents and clean them yourself -- rub some with a cloth, maybe even use a toothbrush or pencil eraser on a couple of them. See how the ones you clean look different from the uncleaned ones. (I&#039;m not too worried about this ruining them for future collectors, because modern copper-coated zinc cents aren&#039;t supposed to last long enough for future collectors to see them.)[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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