Recent World Coin Lot Surprise

[TheJonasCollegeFund]

I recently won an auction on feebay for some world coins. It cost me like $21 + shipping for about 3lbs. I thought I saw some neat coins so I said what the heck. The one thing that caught my eye....but then....didn't catch my eye...was the 3 sets of coins placed on something red. To my surprise, when I opened up the package I soon realized what this was? It must have been a school project for some kid. The coins were glued to red felt paper. And, on top of that, they were coated with some type of clear coat finish. When I saw this....WTF....but soon enough I looked at these coins a little harder. One kinda caught my attention. Then another....and another....then one more! The first was a 1944 1 rupee! Then there was the 1/2 rupee! Next was the 1/4 rupee. And last, for now, was an Egyptian coin. It has 6 sides...SILVER! I scored 4 silvers from this group glued to the red felt!

Now for the rest of the coins. It has been slow for me to learn so many coins so fast. But I was able to spot a couple more silvers. A 1961 canadian quarter, a 1960 canadian dime, a 1968 50% canadian dime, and 2 other foreign silver coins. There was no mention of silver in the ad.

I think the rupees might be heading for next weeks KSA's. I had to soak the coins over night in some soapy water after prying them from their red felt nightmare! I wasn't able to get the bigger 1 rupee cleaned off as much as I wanted!

I have a couple of Mexican silvers in there, too. I'll report on that later when I sure of what I have.

[dakota1955]

Guess I'm going have to start hunting those auctions also.

[TheJonasCollegeFund]

1946...6 pence....Silver!

[Z00]

I know it is verbotten to clean coins but sometimes you have to before you find out what you have.
A while back I got one in a world batch that was so gunky it just HAD to be cleaned.
VOILA! up popped a 1927 GB 6 pence.
No biggie but even a small pc of silver is nice.

[Hawkeye]

Nice score! I've always wondered about those type of auctions - I'll have to take a closer look at them.

[Z00]

Watch out for the ones that say "no tokens Canada or US" How do they know if they haven't searched them themselves? LOL

[Engineer]

I know it is verbotten to clean coins but sometimes you have to before you find out what you have.

Mineral spirits (paint thinner) seems to do a good job of eating off the gunk without destroying the patina. Acetone is a bit more toxic, but will eat up some of the stuff mineral spirits miss.

[TwoAndAHalfCents]

Nice score on those silver coins. I often wonder how much silver is those big batches of foreign coins I see on eBay. In a smaller size lot of 41 coins I picked up recently on eBay there was one very worn George V Canadian dime. No date on it so I can't tell if it is 80% or 92.5% silver but it's still a 2.3g silver coin. Not so sure that finding small amounts of silver can always be expected though.

[Z00]

Finding silver in those lots is very rare. I am always pleasantly surprised when one shows up.