Elton said:
Yea Mark.They look good here too..But dealers said fine scratches hurt the value. Maybe I went to a bad dealer !.
probe gouges are one thing,
but fine scratches isn't part of coin grading unless you get into proof or uncirculated.
Coins especially silver ones took a hard life in circulation, machine rollers, scratch them, coin counters rip the crap out of them in fact they take a lot of abuse.
looking at my coin book it tells how to grade for overall condition and its about wear,
Things like is the hair visible,
Are all the stars visible,
Sharp defined date,
ect...
Now the grading that I'm taking about is for standard grading like,
poor condition,
good condition,
very good condition,
Fine,
ect...
Now the problem in handling them and rubbing them off out of the ground is not so much an issue with the modern silver like the Washington quarters, merc dimes ect... but those that are very OLD and very worn! these sometimes are worn to the point that the date is near gone and rubbing them or scrubbing them and then the date or mint marks may be really gone! If you have a buffalo nickle with NO date its worthless! period!
Now I have found corroded copper pennies that you could see the date when I found them, but when I de-crusted them the date was gone! they would have been WAY better off left alone, but none of those were rare coins, nor that old, so nothing was lost.
Speaking of scratches,
Some time back I stumbled across a bunch of Mint Rolls of Kennedy Half dollars (uncirulated) Boy are they pretty, but boy are they scratched!
Now they even ways to grade uncirulated coins, but most of the time it would be for a rare coin.
I remember years ago when my brothers collected coins, when they found one that they needed to fill a missing date and it was worn badly they ALWAYS handled them by the edges.
Real coin collectors are not looking for common modern silver, except for the VERY rare limited numbers of some dates, or ones like double died.
So, I am careful about pulling coins out of the ground and how I handle them, until I can get enough idea of just what coin it is and how much wear it has.
Where I live the oldest coin I've seen come out of the ground was a Large Cent in the later 1800's. So old for here is right around 1900 to much of the rest of the world this is considered "modern coinage"
Now the folks that live around the New England area where they find 1600's and 1700's coins. (Good Griff by all means handle them very carefully)
I NEVER FOUND A COIN THAT I COULDN'T GO ON EBAY AND FIND ONE BETTER FOR HARDLY NOTHING!
I've never seen a decent condition large Cent come out of the ground! NEVER! but I have one buried in my test garden that I got for $4.00 bucks at the flea market and its in pretty good condition! (but its also a common date) Those large cents are really nice finds because they are getting back past 100 years, so its a real joy to find them, but no matter what you do to them most will not be worth more than a buck or two, at lest for another 100 years or so, LOL!
Now copper is funny around where I live, they are areas where I have dug them dated as old as 1920 and they not be corroded, dark and dirty but not corroded, other places and the same dates will be green and corroded?? But for silver! it always looks fresh dropped, now if its wet out they will have a little mud on them, but when you roll a plug out and there is silver in the hole, it jumps out at you! NICE!.
Mark
