Open question on looking for particular sheen on 40s and 90s

Jyorsky

Sr. Member
Sep 23, 2012
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AT GOLD
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Open question on looking for particular sheen on 40's and 90's

I know that a dirty edge can fool a c.r.h. I also know that looking at all of the dates can take a lot of time. I have been doing this for about 3 years, and my eyes, in the bright sunlight, can see the "patina"' on silver versus clad, in a half dollar, most every time. I can scan the coins in my hand and even sometimes as they are falling back in the roll. Any thoughts?
This normally does not work in doors, under artificial light.
 

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I know what you are talking about, but I still think the patinas can deceive you. I have seen plenty of clad coins with what look like beautiful silver patinas. The thing to remember is that silver as a metal itself, clean or dirty, has an entirely different look than cupro-nickel. This is going to sound weird, but if you look deep into the metal, at the colors that appear, the way it shines, you will see why it has been a precious metal for thousands of years. It physically looks like it is related to gold. There really isn't anything else out there with that kind of shine. Once you handle it enough—you know it anywhere and every time. The biggest part of it all that can fool you is that silver itself can be all different colors, just like gold. But there is no way to hide that shine. The best way to describe it is that it just seems like treasure.

If you want to know the truth though, I trust my ears much more than I trust my eyes in detecting authenticity. As hard as it is to fake that beautiful shine, it's a thousand times harder to fake the distinct sound that silver makes. I have seen and held a number of attempted fakes. I've never heard of any fake that "sounded" authentic.
 

Patina can be deceiving but dates cannot. I always date search EVERYTHING (except cents) because I don't like the idea of the person getting my dumps finding something I missed.
 

Anything that looks even remotely similar to silver I pull out and date check. I also pull out any wide shiny new looking clad rims to see if they are proofs.
 

Patina can be deceiving but dates cannot. I always date search EVERYTHING (except cents) because I don't like the idea of the person getting my dumps finding something I missed.

How do you not date search cents? Do you just look at the backs?
 

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