hey gang picked up a large deal of some monster indian head cents this morning... but the problem with the coins is that they were covered with pvc and sticky!!!... so after some careful conservation... this is what i ended up with

That is some great Indains the cleaning didn't hurt them.

One doesn't appreciate Indians accordingly until you see something like that 1880.

i wish i had taken a pic of it with the pvc all over it... you could see no cameo at all... I conserved it on a hunch because of the wonderful detail and the way the denticles looked...and found a proof... haha

Very nice coins and nice cleanup work.

you just have to know what your doing and take your time... it took me 4 hours of work to remove pvc from about 15 coins...my hands hurt hahaha

these were in the deal too... some one eyed, one horned, flying purple indian head cents...

i got some yellow ones too hahah

Some fabulous toning on those pennies!
It looks like you did a fine job removing the PVC.
How does one go about learning these conservation techniques?
Is there a book or guide out there?

Are ya selling any of them?????

Send me a price list

there are some books on the subject.. but they dont really teach you much... there are some products out there that remove PVC I use blue ribbon... a light application on the end of a cotton swab.. roll it across the surface and the PVC comes off in sheets... then you use a clean cotton swab to remove as much of the blue ribbon as possible and let it air dry... you never rub the coin just roll it across it... it is very time consuming...but can save a coin from the ill effects of PVC... this product...or a similar product is what NCS uses to conserve coins and I dont find that it is ever detrimental to the coins...

I am... i haven't had time yet to go through and price them... but as soon as i do ill post a thread in the for sale section... prob gonna be friday

Thanks for the info! It does sound rather laborious--and tricky to do without leaving cleaning traces. At least I want to understand how to clean coins so I can detect people's mistakes.

So what about those two distinguishes them as proofs?

Ohhhhh... I've never been a sucker for IHC, but goodness if you don't make me fall right in love with them!

I fell in love with em to but I'm a sucker for copper more so than silver.

its hard to get a photo of them.... the 1880 seemed to photo a little better... in hand you can see them cameo up very nicely and the denticles are a little different in a proof then an unc...the surfaces are also much different then an unc...but it is always hard to tell on a raw coin...it took me handling a few to get the characteristics down...

Now this is what I call great US coins, such a shame the UK ebay doesn't sell much old US coins, I'll have to have a look on the US ebay next Friday when I finally get payed

I like Indians. Not really working on a set, but I still pick em up when I can. I have an 1896 and a 1891 in the mail from e-bay. Nowhere near as nice as those however!

WTG Matt!

Matt, did you ever decide the prices on any of the indians?

at the moment they are packed up on my desk about to be on their way to be graded... i will let you know when they come back

Oh man the PVC gooey stuff ack!...

Still very nice coins.... :0