I won this US mint Medal off of Ebay, yeah, more problems for me from Ebay.
Anyway, I received it and there is these really aggressive black marks on it, it's mostly on the edge but some if it continues on to the obverse and reverse, mostly the obverse. There are also some spots on the obverse that I have circled in neon green.
Since it is in the original mint bag, or so the seller says, the bag is soft and I know the smaller mint medals come in firmer bags then that one, I was wondering if the black areas are toning or is it something else?



This is the original pic from the auction, I should have noticed the marks on the obverse but no mention was made of the marks on the edges.

Must remember...ALWAYS ASK QUESTIONS!!!!

Can't really see much in the green circles except that black on the side that overlaps on the top. I have to say I really like it though.


Judging by your fingers it must be HUGE!!!

It's 2 1/2" It is friggin huge

That's why I got it off Ebay, mint charges about $40 for it and I got it for less then $20

If there are no holes in the bag I would suspect that the black is carbon spotting. If there are small pinholes in the bag then toning would be possible as air and pollutants leak in. Some coins that were stored in 2X2s for a long time develop small spots beneath tiny holes that are worn through the plastic from handling and contact with other coins.

Copper does 2 things really well...tone and corrode.

But is there a way to try to remove the really agressive black on the edges?
I thought maybe a little baking soda on a Q-tip just to knock a little of the darker tone out?
Or is that just a bad idea?
I figure it's best to leave the spots on the obverse well enough alone

I'd guess it depends on how seriously you want to try to remove it. There's a cleanup process that a lot of folks swear by (some swear at) used by Large and Half Cent collectors. You can find a detailed description of the process here.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/earlycopper/

How about just giving us the short version? I don't want to join another yahoo group with their pestiferous email "message notification" assaults to find out their method. I'll send you an IHC if you'll share. ;-)

Thanks! I joined the group and read some of the cleaning tips.
My god they are involved but I guess the more you do, and the more delicately you do it the better the results.

I'd love to share the info with you, but it's posted on the Early Copper Coin site and as I recall one of the rules is don't copy the posts to other places.

This is a pretty easy to live with site. They don't spam you and in general the rules are pretty straight forward. As much as I hate to pass a free IHC.

I will however ask permission from the guy who posted all the cleaning procedures to make a copy and post them here. He's a pretty good fellow and I'm sure he'll agree.

Update: request sent.

The procedures are quite involved but I've gotten a number of first hand reports from folks who have used them and they work. I've even had a few people tell me that they've successfully removed early verdigris with these procedures.