I've seen straight-graded early silver coins in PCGS holders that have been described as "gently wiped." How would you interpret this? The coin was wiped with a silver polishing cloth? Light cleaning with visible hairlines? A light cleaning that was missed by the graders? A light cleaning that the graders gave the benefit of the doubt because of the age of the coin? Etc. Of course, you would have to look at the coin, but I'm curious about the semantics. Your thoughts?
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It is why the toilet paper industry uses the word so successfully.
Mine just ...happened.... to be a better date.
As a kid, I baking soda'ed that coin probably every couple months as it kept turning green.
We are talking MULTIPLE ...DRY... baking soda.
40 years later I sent it to ANACS who 53'ed it.
But it wasn't LIGHTLY wiped.
After leaving the ANA's authentication service in the 80's, I worked in an upscale hotel coin gallery in DC buying and selling coins for a few years. Nevertheless, I do not consider my self a coin dealer. I guess I missed something because the first time I ever heard the term "wipe" applied to an impaired coin was at NGC in the '90's. The coin I was shown had the shiny, parallel hairlines caused by the rubber roller of a counting machine. Thus a "wipe" was not anything you could describe as a "light" mark.
Obviously, that word was "coined" sometime previously by coin dealers to soften the mental impression of a problem just as the word "smoothed." In my experience, I've seen that term used to describe anything from a light patch of parallel hairlines to an obvious wheel mark. I've seen coins with continuous hairlines from cleaning even called "lightly wiped" rather than cleaned.
It is a shame that numismatic terms cannot be UNIVERSALLY strictly defined and adopted by all knowledgeable people involved with coins. It would save a lot of confusion and eliminate just another "fudge factor" used to describe a coin.
thank you so much!
Charmin! They built a Billion Dollar Company on that claim.
It should exhibit good toning or second skin to make it “market acceptable”
Bust DM's,
What you have posted will not cause a "wipe" and in many cases, depending on what is used, may not produce hairlines visible to the eye. I encurage everyone to buy a cheap Proof coin and a BU 1964 quarter and play around with them using different materials. I've setteled on Bounty Paper towels and Klenex but I never drag anything across the surface of a coin. Expensive cotton undershirt material is good for guns and coins too. Many recommend cotton towels and pat the coin dry.
PS I thought of another common characteristic on coins you might encounter that can be considered to be a "wipe." Very often a chemically soaked rag has been "wiped" across a coin to change its color.
Of course he had hit that precise spot with his shovel.
Bent and big dig mark. BIG dig!
It was a territorial gold.
Only a Moffat .... but still.
I have some news for all of you on this forum. I have personally lost a bet to an experienced coin dealer when I claimed I could find anything he did to a copper coin using my microscope. I watched his technique for cleaning the coin using baking soda. When he finished, I had to concede that there were no hairlines on the coin and it still looked as nice as it was before he cleaned it with the baking soda paste! That was a long time ago when there was no such thing as "Market Acceptable" ANYTHING.