Youtubers That Damage Silver Coins...

[fogrider]

Please forgive my rant, but this drives me crazy.

So many Youtubers rub the dirt off their silver (or gold) coins the second they dig them up. As a coin collector, my heart sinks whenever I see someone pull a sweet old silver coin out of the ground and proceed to damage it by furiously rubbing it with their fingers or against their clothing. There's one Youtuber who found a valuable US gold coin and proceeded to pick and rub away at some gunk with his fingers. AAAARGH!

The minute my silver comes out of the ground I put it in a pill container with cotton ball padding. When I get home I soak it in water for awhile, then gently rinse off the dirt. This is followed by a gentle final cleaning with water and a soft toothbrush to remove the last of the soil. I do my best keep the original patina intact.

One trick I use is to pour a bit of water in the hole just before the coin is exposed. This softens the dirt and reduces scratching during extraction.

Rant complete....

 

[schoolofhardNox]

When they use those digging knives and scratch the coin drives me even more nuts. 😄 Then they just say" Oh well at least I saved the coin from being in the ground" 🤬 But they never stop using that digging tool and continue to gouge more coins. 🙄

[Doc Bach]

I had too stop yelling and cussing at the tv some years ago...My girlfriend and the cat thought that I was crazy! Which I am most of the time I suppose? Doc 5150

[sodbuster]

I agree in principle, but truthfully, it is a rare thing for a coin with high numismatic value to be recovered in the ground.

It is not a pristine collector's coin anymore if has oxidized and corroded.  So,  since it's their find, their coin and their loss if they decide to sell it for value over silver, it's their choice to make.   I've been detecting about 45 years now.  I have found bunches of old coins, but not a single rare coin.  Nevertheless, I try to be careful of what I find and don't "rub & scrub" either silver or copper in the field, using fingers or anything else.

[Zincoln]

While i also take special care of my low mintage silver coins and appreciate and retain them....this whole thing is conjured up by you and me.  Coins that come out of the ground with 'vintage' wear and scratches or even bag marks from the mint are great.  This is original patina.  However, god forbid those of us that find them put little micro scratches on them or remove tarnish.  This is all just a mechanism driven by the coin collecting world to drive price tiers and differentiation (no different than any other business tiering scheme or mechanism).  When did this start becoming a thing in the coin collecting world - 80's, 90's?

You can send your coin to a grading company for preservation (light cleaning) and that is perfectly acceptable.  Don't do the same thing yourself though.  Your coin will now be damaged.  But if you paid an expert, all is well.  Let the coin sit and develop a patina (silver oxidization) for several decades and most will have the appearance of vintage aging...with some exceptions.  

For those common coins that I find, i hit them all with a baking soda past because i like the appearance in the binder.  As they are effectively junk silver, it doesn't matter in any material way.  The vast majority, if graded, would yield an environmental damage label right, wrong, or otherwise.

My take is have fun, enjoy the hobby.  Do what makes you happy.   I might cringe if you further damage a $300 coin, but that is your issue, not mine.  I spend my time detecting and minimal time worrying about other people and their actions.  Kinda not my business.  

One man's alternative take....

[GB_Amateur]

Just last week I uncovered what turned out to be a rare Whistler painting at a yard sale.  Got it for $5; Unknowingly I tossed it in the back seat.  On the way home I stopped at the hardware store and got a can of acetone.  Put that in the back seat too.  When I got home not only had it tipped over onto the painting but the damn cap was loose and the acetone had started disolving the paint!

Oh, well, it's my painting.  I can do whatever I want with it and who are you to question??

[locator]

22 minutes ago, Zincoln said:

While i also take special care of my low mintage silver coins and appreciate and retain them....this whole thing is conjured up by you and me.  Coins that come out of the ground with 'vintage' wear and scratches or even bag marks from the mint are great.  This is original patina.  However, god forbid those of us that find them put little micro scratches on them or remove tarnish.  This is all just a mechanism driven by the coin collecting world to drive price tiers and differentiation (no different than any other business tiering scheme or mechanism).  When did this start becoming a thing in the coin collecting world - 80's, 90's?

You can send your coin to a grading company for preservation (light cleaning) and that is perfectly acceptable.  Don't do the same thing yourself though.  Your coin will now be damaged.  But if you paid an expert, all is well.  Let the coin sit and develop a patina (silver oxidization) for several decades and most will have the appearance of vintage aging...with some exceptions.  

For those common coins that I find, i hit them all with a baking soda past because i like the appearance in the binder.  As they are effectively junk silver, it doesn't matter in any material way.  The vast majority, if graded, would yield an environmental damage label right, wrong, or otherwise.

My take is have fun, enjoy the hobby.  Do what makes you happy.   I might cringe if you further damage a $300 coin, but that is your issue, not mine.  I spend my time detecting and minimal time worrying about other people and their actions.  Kinda not my business.  

One man's alternative take....

Couldn't have said this better. Thanks Zincoln.👍

[F350Platinum]

Learned this early from the Hoover Boys. You can see countless videos of them rubbing coppers, but they always "Whip the Foo" (a spray bottle of distilled water) on silver. I keep one of their $5 spray bottles in a 9mm magazine pouch on my belt.

I'm sure you can get others but these work well.

Edit:

Gotta add that I also use a composite trowel on suspected silvers. That cheap $5 Fiskars. It's also great for tracking coins down with the pinpointer because it's non metal.

[Rattlehead]

I've had what I call "The Coin Police" come after me on several occasions in the comments of my videos for this very thing. I don't rub the whole coin, but I do wipe off just the area with the date so that I can quickly show viewers in real time what it is. A spray bottle doesn't work so well in this crusty Georgia clay, so I don't even bother with that method anymore. The way I see it, the coin has been in the ground for 100+ years so it already has micro-scratches all over it. They'd likely get the environmental damage grade anyway, so I don't worry too much about wiping off a little dirt to see the date. At the end of the day, the coins are mine and I have no intentions of selling them, so seeing others get upset about my cleaning method just makes me chuckle. 

[abenson]

If I find a gold coin yea, I'm treating it good until I can get home and gently wash the dirt off. Silver coins not so much. If you have a coin graded, which I have had a few, and you dug it. It's going to come back as cleaned or dug, end of story. Which automatically devalues the coin. Further more I rarely sell my coins so I really would rather have them clean which means electrolysis or baking soda paste for me. The dang coin was in circulation for how many years, I don't think rubbing a little is going to do that much more damage. But that's just me.