das1979p

Sorting through some shillings, I found one from 1948 that has a very weak 8. Any thoughts on whether it is unusual wear, or something more interesting? It's about to go in my big box of worthless coins, but I wanted a second opinion before throwing it away.

I have a coin that I would like to have graded, but before I do, I'm after some advice. I have never graded a coin and I don't want to get it wrong. The coin is a 1898 South African Pond. To my eye it looks to be in fairly good condition, but it has a nick on the top edge. Will it be rejected? What sort of grade might it achieve? NGC or PCGS? From their websites, neither is particularly cheap. Do discounts come up at coin fairs? Trying to decipher the small print, I reckon NGC is in the order of $50. Should I wait until I find something better? I assume that CGS is not a good option, because it is not British. Sorry about the photos, it looks like the top is in focus, but not the bottom. Many thanks, David

Thanks for the help. I guess it is going in the box then.

Thanks for the advice. It looks like my first grading will have to wait.

I know that the answer is 'Don't!', but please bear with me. I have bought two 1899 gold $5 coins for less than their melt value. They are very high grade with one exception. Someone has turned them into a brooch. Is it possible to remove the soldered on parts? Has anyone else had any success with something similar? Can the coins be restored? Thanks, David

My first response from a jeweller doesn't look too promising: Without cutting the gold bits off the only other way is to heat them until the solder melts, the solder will then spread with no way of removing the solder and heat marks without polishing which will further damage the coin. Another forum in America discusses the possibility of using nitric acid / hydrogen peroxide to remove solder from gold. Any thoughts? I'll try contacting some other jewellers in the meantime.

It was a general auction, but they normally have coin lots. The auction house guarantees that coins are genuine and they will refund if they are fake (I asked them about a different lot where there were replica coins in a collection). I think that the speckles are noise from the camera. The photos were taken in low light. They look good to my eye. The weight is about right (about 2g over the coin weight).

Thanks for the help. The restoration certainly looks impressive. I have no intention of selling them. I have a small collection that is slowly growing and these came up in a local auction and caught my eye. I'm sure that there will always be evidence of the mounting, I just wanted them to become coins again.