My two dug large cents came back from PCGS as "Authenticity Unverifiable"

[FreeBirdTim]

Never clean your coins

That's great advice for coins in general circulation, but not feasible for dug coins. All coins removed from the ground will need some cleaning. It may just be to rinse off the dirt, but they'll all need some clean up. No one in their right mind is going to toss a dirty coin into a holder. All that grit will end up doing more damage to the coin.

 

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[jerseyben]

I had a 32 quarter that I got as a kid at the movies. The coin was held by me for 40 yrs before I sent it to them. They sent it back as "cleaned".
I think PCGS gets most of their $ by dealers who submit many coins at a time. They don't want to be bothered with your piddly coins.
Sent these to PCS, but to do this you need to join NGC. PCS will conserve and slab them even if they have environmental damage.
I am leaning towards keeping coins unslabbed. It is really only a value you are actually looking for and that is always negotiable when selling anyway.
Besides, anyone who is buying will have minimal expertise when it comes to whether they were cleaned or not, and if you cleaned off dirt without making any marks, you might even get more. If all you are looking for is a case to hold your coins, there are tons of those you can buy for practically nothing.

What is PCS?

 

[Jason in Enid]

I would have rather that they came back as period counterfeits! Rarer and brings a much better story. Sorry they wasted your money by them basically telling you nothing.

 

[FreeBirdTim]

I would have rather that they came back as period counterfeits!

Exactly what I was thinking. Calling them possible contemporary counterfeits would have made them desirable to many coin collectors. Charging $110 and then returning them in baggies seems like a rip-off to me...