A Whizzing Tale

[Pampfan]

Well, I just recently inherited a few coins from relatives that were basically circulated coins with lots of wear on them - and some with lots of dirt, etc. and a dremel multitool.  Now, I am not really one who does a lot of work around the house - but I did hear of dremels in the past but I never owned one.  For those who have no idea what I am talking about - a dremel tool is basically an electric drill that has multiple attachments to perform various things.  To my surprise when I looked in side - one of the attachments was a steel brush wheel.  I have heard of some older coins being machined or whizzed to correct imperfections or remove spots, etc.  Well, considering that the coins I received where copper pennies and some common silver kennedy dollars - I decide to give it a shot and see what happens:  below are the results - the coins on the left where examples of how I received the coins and the coins on the right are after I "whizzed" them for about 30 seconds each. (

I was quite surprised at how shiny these coins look now - almost as if they were minted yesterday - however, the shine or luster of the coins is all wrong and can be spotted a mile away by anyone who has dealt with untouched coins or has any knowledge on coin collecting. 

I think it was a good experiment to understand what a whizzed coin would look like?

For the new collectors - just because something looks nice and shinny - don't be fooled by scammers trying to pass something off as untouched or BU - when in reality the coin has been tampered with, etc.   You need to do your homework!!!!

 

[metallica73]

And its very hard to tell from just an Ebay photo sometimes.

I would say for a non noob, although the others blatantly stand out as whizzed.... that 1964 Kennedy from pic alone looks like an UNC with lustre just from the photo.

[Seasider]

It has worked wonders on the 20 Centavos - it looks 12 years younger.

[Martlet]

Would i be correct that there's now evidence of scratching on the coins?  Using a brillo (cut in to peices with some plastic washers to hold) or a polishing wheel would give a softer clean up. 

Now for added experiment, put the coins in a box with regular copper/nickel coins and see what happens, especially the copper ones. 

 

[Pampfan]

49 minutes ago, Martlet said:

Would i be correct that there's now evidence of scratching on the coins?   

 

@Martlet, there is no evidence of any scratching on the coins - the rpm’s of the mini steel brush (12 thousand a minute) didn’t leave any.  Since it is metal on metal - during the process - the coins did get very hot to the touch - I had to wear gloves in order to hold the coins and also not to have the wire brush rip apart the skin on my fingers.

I have some old junk silver that I will be doing some tests on today. Some beat up mercury dimes and a couple silver dollars. It is very interesting to me to take a blah beat up coin with years of dirt and wear and just clean it to see all the original details and make it shinny and blast white like the Kennedy half above.

More pics to come.

 

 

[Cacc]

The collector part of me is cringing...but the "ooo shiny" part of me is quite satisfied.

[999magnum]

And I thought me and an eraser was extreme!

[Pampfan]

Here are the results of test # 2 - All Old US Junk Silver and a Buffalo nickel: (I've also attached a picture of the dremel mini tool and the wire brush)

This was the most actual fun I have had with my coins in a while.  

In hindsight - I should have only cleaned one half of each coin - so that the difference in appearance could be seen clearly.  (I did leave half of a morgan dollar uncleaned just to show the dramatic difference)

It should be noted that I traded in all the cleaned coins at todays coin show as junk silver and was able to pick up these two - original coins in exchange.

[sovereignsteve]

I think you should sent the best looking one for grading just to test them

[Pampfan]

1 minute ago, sovereignsteve said:

I think you should sent the best looking one for grading just to test them

Would be really bad if one of them actually got a good ms grade. LOL ??

[PansPurse]

When's @Numistacker's next bulk grading submission?

[Guest]

When's [mention=378]Numistacker[/mention]'s next bulk grading submission?

Probably end Feb or end March