DON"T USE NCS !!!!

[cosmic]

Here's what Numismatic Conservation Services (sister company of NGC) did to a nice 1877 Indian !!! Conservation my butt!! It looks like they dropped it in acid and forgot about it !! A kid with a pocket knife can do a better job !! They totally destroyed a find of a lifetime !! NCS is terrible!! If I would of sent it in to NGC without the SO CALLED CONSERVATION at least It would of been encapsulated... Better to do it yourself then let these morons do it !!!
A update they are going to refund the conservation fees... HOW NICE OF THEM !!!!

[jopher]

Does this appear to be the same coin that you sent them

[Marchas45]

I was thinking the same thing.

[diggummup]

Yeah ditto that one too.

[Lookn4Seated]

It totally looks like it is a different coin. Like they took yours and swapped it with this one. Wow! That is really f'ed up. soryy about your bad experience, I would be livid.

[DigginThePast]

I thought it looked different at first as well. But I looked to the field of the coin to determine. Look at the N in ONE and the N in CENT, I believe it is in fact the same coin.

And I would be out of my mind with rage. Sorry that happened cosmic.

[BeerBottleTom]

I'd be raising hell with them. I'd take it and get about 3-4 estimates from dealers on what the coin would have been worth in the first pictures. Then ask what they would give for the coin. Present the estimates to them and try to resolve it....

[cosmic]

THEIR WARRANTIE MEANS NOTHING !!
5. Company will use reasonable care with respect to items submitted to it for Services. However, in the event that Company determines that an item was lost or damaged while in Company’s possession, Company will compensate Customer based upon Company’s good faith determination of the fair market value of the item, in light of what Company believes to be reliable current market information. The amount of the compensation will not necessarily be based upon, but in no event will exceed, Customer’s stated insured value of the item set forth in this Submission Form.

WHAT A JOKE !!!!

[treasurehound]

OMG it does look like it was dropped in acid. I can't believe that they did that.

[Tom_Restorer]

Why did you send this coint to restoration? It was as best in this condition and it can´t be made better.

Tom

[boogeyman]

Holy cow!!!!!

Cosmic, I'd lay a hundred dollar bet you could've done a better job yourself with a brillo pad! Sorry to see such a nice find wasted.

Thanks for posting hopefully it'll be a good lesson for others. Like they say, a picture is worth a thousand words.

[Roland58]

If you look at the nicks in the edge of the coin on the face side, the ones on the "cleaned" coin are not the same as the nicks on the edge of the uncleaned coin. Admittedly, there is some corrosion that would make some of these appear a little different, but, something doesn't line up here. And, why does the cleaned coin appear the color of pewter? The IH's were solid copper, were they not? What would they have done to change the color of the coin?

Sorry for your disappointment, but, thanks for the 'heads up!'

[Iron Patch]

Why did you send this coint to restoration? It was as best in this condition and it can´t be made better.

Tom

Absolutely 100% without any doubt. The coin didn't need anything except maybe an optional coat of wax, or something like blue ribbon coin conditioner. I REALLY can't believe they would do such a thing. What IDIOTS! They are suppose to be the professionals and should know better.

[Iron Patch]

If you look at the nicks in the edge of the coin on the face side, the ones on the "cleaned" coin are not the same as the nicks on the edge of the uncleaned coin. Admittedly, there is some corrosion that would make some of these appear a little different, but, something doesn't line up here. And, why does the cleaned coin appear the color of pewter? The IH's were solid copper, were they not? What would they have done to change the color of the coin?

Sorry for your disappointment, but, thanks for the 'heads up!'

It's the same coin, look at the corrosion spot in the Indian's first feather. What happen was they stripped what was a beautiful green patina which is basically the same idea is if you tumbled it with all your common cents. They obviously used something acid based.

[sniffer]

once you remove the patina from a coin, you have effectively removed anything above face value
like IP said, coin oil and leave it, maybe brush with a soft toothbrush, to remove loose debris and then leave it alone

[romeo-1]

That really sucks but I gotta echo a couple previous sentiments. Why did you send that in...what kind of results were you expecting? The coin with the beautiful green patina looked top notch as is...

[Iron Patch]

That really sucks but I gotta echo a couple previous sentiments. Why did you send that in...what kind of results were you expecting? The coin with the beautiful green patina looked top notch as is...

Unless cleaning was discussed, and basically an arm twisted, this one is still on NCS because to conserve it they could have simply left it as is, and slabbed it. But they didn't, they did something any real professional would not do. They killed it! I'm not sure if they do grading, and if so, then that's plenty more reason a nice coin can be sent in.

[EE THr]

Not being a coin collector, I don't know which version would be given more value. But the damage to the coin (very pitted) appears to have been done by the corrosion, not by the cleaning.

The cleaned version does show much more detail, especially in the shield, the feathers, and the wheat.

[sniffer]

the bad thing EE is that now that they've "preserved" it, it now looks like it came from a play money set

[EE THr]

Sniffer---

I see your point.

Obviously, neither version is able to be graded anything near even the minimum "collector quality" levels. So I guess it's a matter of which version you want to show your friends and grand kids.

Getting the coin back in such a different condition than when sent in, is a real visual shock.

By the way, there was a post that appeared to be a cut-and-paste from NCS, which essentially said that they would remove corrosion to prevent its further damaging the coin (but the poster removed it). I guess if it was left on, it could continue to pit it even more? How long it would take for it to make it look worse, I have no idea, though.

All in all, it's still an Indian Head from over 130 years ago, and it's a score!