CLEANING - Do you think these are cleaned? How to learn to spot cleaned coins

10 posts

» Quick access to the last post

I am new to spotting cleaned coins. Totally green. So bear with me :)
I understand the basics, but many tests etc can not be done online and from photos only.

If someone wants to give their opinion on these coins, if they are cleaned or not, I would love it.
I can be quiet about my own assessment for now and see what you think :) .

1. Copper-Nickel


2. Silver


3. Silver


4.Nickel
#1 is cleaned, you can see a halo effect around the letters.
#2 I can't tell, but I'd be worried about authenticity, it looks off to me. Hopefully I'm wrong and someone more knowledgeable on these coins can chime in.
#3 has luster, not cleaned
#4 is just some circulation marks, not cleaned.
I agree with Arusak but I think 2 has been cleaned
Okay so nr 1 cleaned, nr 2 cleaned AND fake(?) Nr 3 not cleaned and nr 4 not cleaned... so far. Thanks for the input
1) Cleaned, toning looks wrong.

2) Not cleaned, just fake.

3) Not cleaned from what I can see.

4) May or may not be cleaned, I would need to see the coin in-hand to be able to make a determination.
Quote: "Steve27"​1) Cleaned, toning looks wrong.

​2) Not cleaned, just fake.

​3) Not cleaned from what I can see.

​4) May or may not be cleaned, I would need to see the coin in-hand to be able to make a determination.


@​Steve27, what is it that tells you coin 2 is fake as opposed to a real 400 reis? (I ask cause the seller is, from what I have been told, one with a certain standing and experience)
The second coin is absolutely different from the original. Amount of dots in crown, amount of bands and form of castels in the shield, letters... Colour of metal is also not silver
Medieval sets for swap:https://en.numista.com/forum/topic140941.html

My personal list of scammers from Numista: erniemix, yvain, CassTaylor
Good stuff. I learn l lot here. Cool. I will look up a real coin and see them beside eachother. Thanks!
About coin number 1 - coin is cleaned, and letters are in "halo". There is "good cleaned" and "bad cleaned" as far as I can understand. Is this a bad clean?
The second coin has a very uniform strike and even wear, that's not normal for a coin over 200 years old. I would expect a coin from 1812 to look more like this real one:


Additionally, look at the lettering, the "8" is all wrong on your example.

» Forum policy

Used time zone is UTC+1:00.
Current time is 07:49.