How do you know if a coin has been cleaned?

[Quimster]

Hello everyone. How can you tell if a coin has been cleaned? I have an old Mercury dime that looks very dull but still has what looks like orginal shine when put under a light at different angles. It is tarnished just below the rim but doesn't look unnatural. This is the same on both sides. If any silver piece was cleaned how long would it take to tarnish again and would it tarnish in this fashion from the outside rim in? The only reason I don't believe it to be a cleaned dime is because it has darker areas on random parts of the obverse and reverse in areas that are harder to touch, between letter and numbers etc...

If anyone has any pictures that you can post in a reply of what a cleaned silver piece retarnishing looks like that would be so very helpful. Finally what percentage decrease would a cleaned coin have as compaired to a non cleaned coin of the same grading. Thanks in advance to anyone who replies.

Thanks again, Jesse

 

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[Jeffro]

With copper coins its reall easy to tell, can spot a cleaned coin from across the room, sometimes. Silver is a little harder. Basically it takes looking at a lot of older silver coins, enough to where you can spot the difference by experience. I still don't have it down. Best bet is to take it to several coin dealers and see what they have to say. I say several, because you never know if you went to one that has a less than reputavle reputation. But if you were to take it to say, three different dealers and they ALL said it was cleaned, well then that would be pretty convincing.

Unless its a really rare coin with a lot of value, I wouldn't worry about it TOO much. a ten dollar coin dropped down to 7 or 5 isn't too big a deal. A 1000 dollar coin dropped down to 700 or 500 is- LOL!