Re-plating silver/copper/gold coins for higher grade?

Just had a scary thought: is it possible for someone to re-plate a silver coin (or copper, or gold) so that it appears to be a higher grade that it actually is? Example: you find a raw, BU example of a 1932-D quarter with some hairline scratches in the field and devices and you dip it in a silver-plating solution to cover it up and add luster to the entire coin. (??)

The reason I ask is because I've been looking through "hsturn"'s inventory on eBay and I just can't fathom a legitimate reason as to why ALL of his coins are uniform in appearance. There's no way you can have that many coins that look EXACTLY the same with NO trace of hairline scratches yet there are noticeable dings and deeper scratches on the coin. Am I going crazy or could this be a possible technique that's used out there?

 

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Im no expert but i think if you plate something you can do anything with it. If i plate a quarter in platinum i think it would look prooflike? And it depends on the metal, probably some would show better than other due to metal properties, thats all i can think of.

 

I would beware of this seller. Just as you stated, all of his Morgan dollars have an eerily uniform appearance. I can see signs of polishing on many of them. It does not seem to be affecting the bids though!

 

I am far from an expert, but I would say that plating it in any way would destroy its mint lust... mint luster is that hourglass cart wheel effect that a coin has as you turn it under a light. That mint luster is created by the way the metal flows when it is struck and is impossible to recreate. If it were over dipped in acid which is most likely the case or cleaned or plated it would be real real shiny and mirror like reflective, but when you held it under a light and rotated it you would see little or no hour glass cartwheel effect at all, meaning it has been seriously damaged and devalued in a numismatic sense.

 

I think alot of what you are seeing is due to the lighting he uses..on his Morgans anyway. If you look you can see contact marks and frost breaks that are typical on MS morgans. He may be doctoring his photos to hide flaws, but I doubt they are plated...I have several sets of plated 1943 steel cents and like dctjr80 stated they have absolutely no luster..But...like stated by many others in many threads buying raw coins without being 100% sure is sometimes very costly..

 

That depends on how long it was plated for. A flash plate would not add anything detectable by the scales most of us have. The flash plate would come off very easy though. Even a longer plate job would probably keep the coin within the weight tolerances of the denomination.

 

A plating heavy enough to remove the hairlines say from cleaning would also be heavy enough to wipe out the microscopic flowlines that produce the luster. A plating job can NOT restore luster. It might make the coin "shiny" but shiny is not luster.

A flash plating might not wipe out the luster (it will subdue it) but it won't hide the hairlines either.

 

What about proof coins? Plating them wouldn't seem to affect the appearance very much, since they don't exhibit the cartwheel luster. Suppose a coin doctor had a PF63 Mercury Dime. Seems pretty easy for him to re-plate it with silver and cover up the blemishes that designated the 63 grade, possibly bumping it up to a 66 or 67(??)

 

I just happen to have a fully equipped plating station in my garage.

If enough people want me to I can run some experiments. I have silver, nickel, and rhodium plating solutions. I have copper sulphate for copper plating, but do not have any sulphuric acid to mix with it.

just sayin...

 

No harm in trying, (and of course) if you don't mind. I'd like to see the outcome of your results - particularly silver-on-silver since there are 100's of examples on copper-plating on silver coins and vice-versa.

 

Plating with silver typically (I believe) will NOT give you a mirror finish without polishing, and you will lose whatever contrast there might be between the fields and devices. So I don't think you need to worry about plating proofs.

Also typically the blemish you might be trying to get rid of on proofs would once again be hairlines which means once again a thicker plating. It will be noticeable.

 

I've never used the silver plating before, but I know with the rhodium the finish depends on what your plating on. If you plate on matte, the finish will be matte, if you plate on shiny, the finish will be shiny.

 

i bought some coins from HSTURN last year ... they were all cleaned ... fortunately he has a return policy ... which worked fine

 

HSturn's stuff always looks great from the photos ... but when you get the coins in hand you can see the fine lines from a bad cleaning ... like they were whizzed or something

This coin has 5 bidders and is going for over $900 already ...

http://cgi.ebay.com/1935-HUDSON-COM...em&pt=Coins_US_Individual&hash=item5d29d17823

 

the other shady thing about hsturn is he always puts grades on his coins ... the one above he says MS65+ ... but he rarely (never?) offers any PCGS or NGC graded coins ... i think we all know the reason for that!

 

and he's a "top rated seller" with 99.9% positive feedback! imagine what the others are doing.

 

What in the world are you going on about WingedLiberty, you are way off topic for this thread? This thread is about Plating a coin and the evidence there of, why do you not post this in a crappy eBay dealer thread or start the millionth crappy eBay dealer thread.

 

did you read post #1 (the original post) of this thread?