What does "a gentle wipe" mean to you. — Welcome to the CAC Educational Forum

What does "a gentle wipe" mean to you.

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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Comments

  • My thought is light hairlines however imparted. However it could be the person who described it that way was incorrect in their assessment.
  • I interpret it as excellent thinking outside the box sales gobbledygobbledness. The use of the word "gentle", is to awaken the feminine softness awareness in our brain.
    It is why the toilet paper industry uses the word so successfully.
  • Probably one wipe too many. If referenced, it's to discard the issue from a marketing standpoint before heralding the coin's other virtues.
  • It is what a cleaned coin is called when you are trying to sell it
  • To me it means pass on that coin. 
  • It brings back memories. My first ever ebay purchase, and first coin worth more than a few hundred, was a segs graded "ms64rd wiped" 1909-s vdb Lincoln Cent purchased summer of 2002 ($1200, a regular pcgs 64rd would have been around $2000). The thing looked like a 66rd or 67rd. It was unbelievable. Just under magnification at the right angle you could see quite a few horizontal hairlines on the obverse. I really enjoyed owning that coin but was definitely a beginner and less savvy than now. I'd say such a coin could be a good purchase but it'd have to be so rare that it's essentially unavailable problem free AND the price would have to be commensurate. I got lucky on price, but an 09-s vdb is certainly not an unavailable coin, and I later sold it. Problem is the quality I do want, a problem free 66rd or up, is essentially unavailable at my budget. But I can always hope!

  • This is a 1908-S IHC that my gramma gave me. She gave my cousin and me 3 each IHCs.
    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. :D
  • Perhaps ‘youthfully loved’
  • My 2c...

    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.
  • Insider3 said:

    My 2c...

    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.

    your $0.02 is priceless to others

    thank you so much!
  • A gentle wipe is:

    Charmin! They built a Billion Dollar Company on that claim.
  • To me it implies a coin that may have been stored in an old coin cabinet and the owner GENTLY wiped the dust off it once every decade or so.

    It should exhibit good toning or second skin to make it “market acceptable”
  • It means that I bought the wrong coin again...
  • BustDMs said:

    To me it implies a coin that may have been stored in an old coin cabinet and the owner GENTLY wiped the dust off it once every decade or so.

    It should exhibit good toning or second skin to make it “market acceptable”

    You guys have some really funny posts. I like the Charmin the best.

    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.
  • Pyrite said:

    This is a 1908-S IHC that my gramma gave me. She gave my cousin and me 3 each IHCs.
    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. :D

    HaHaHa, reminds me of the 1918-D 25c I dug from about 10 inches of soil while metal detecting in the 1980's. I got home and scrubbed the heck out of it with wet baking soda paste. Delorey's ANACS graded it MS63! I can only imagine how pristine it must have been when it was lost....
  • One day at the shop, a guy brought in a coin he had found in his rose garden.
    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. :'(
  • Pyrite said:

    This is a 1908-S IHC that my gramma gave me. She gave my cousin and me 3 each IHCs.
    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. :D

    HaHaHa, reminds me of the 1918-D 25c I dug from about 10 inches of soil while metal detecting in the 1980's. I got home and scrubbed the heck out of it with wet baking soda paste. Delorey's ANACS graded it MS63! I can only imagine how pristine it must have been when it was lost....

    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.
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