I now fully intend to start this meme, ala “kill it with fire.”
A few posters come to mind immediately that appear to have adopted this strategy.
If you had 20 old U.S. silver dollars left to you from your parents, most of the time you won’t devalue them(at least not very much) by taking off the tarnish. But, and that’s a big but, if depends on how you take off the tarnish. We use, on silver coins that are ugly, a liquid silver cleaner, but nothing abrasive. On an absolutely common silver coin, you can use something like baking soda and water as a paste, rubbing the dirt and grime off the coin. It won’t make it any more valuable, but it won’t hurt the value.
Examples: silver dollars dated 1921-26 are about the most common. If you had a random mix of these, we’d pay you $15 each right now. If you had an original roll of 1922 dollars, still in a paper wrapper where someone got a new roll from the bank in the pre-1964 days, we’d pay $16-18 each. If you polished your dollars with paste polish before you brought them in(abrasive) we’d probably pay you $13. each
Extreme example–You have a collection of uncirculated silver dollars by date and mint, left to you by a relative. They’ve picked up toning(tarnish) over the years. If you left them just like you found them, we’d pay you $3000. for your 1884-S dollar in uncirculated. If you paste polished it before bringing it in–$300. Again, extreme example.
Its value has been reduced, obviously. But I am saying it’s been reduced for an arbitrary and silly reason. There’s a lot of OCD among collectors. 
Sam, would it be OK to PM you? I have some questions about selling a collection.
All collectibles are like that…they are worth whatever the buyer will pay, and that is always arbitrary. If they are giving you the money, they are the ones who get to make up the rules.
So you’d also pay less if you used a baking soda solution and aluminum foil to convert the tarnish (silver sulfide) back to pure silver? (Come on, I can’t have been the only one that saw Mr. Wizard do that to a silver spoon.)
Probably. While it’s an interesting thought question(the chemical reaction), my guess is that the atmospheric reaction over 25-100 years of the sulfur combining with the silver(and copper) in a silver dollar, and THEN the reversal, chemically, would alter the original surface enough that a skilled coin dealer/collector could tell that it wasn’t totally an original surface. Thus the price differential.
Is it safe to assume that if someone was selling a batch of old silver coins for melt, that it would make no difference if they were washed, poilished, buffed or whatever?
Why would anyone melt old silver coins? Silver coins are almost always worth more than scrap silver.
As to whether you should polish any coin, the answer is definitely not. Leave the patina as is. It attests to the age of the coin. Polishing will remove it; as well, even the gentlest silver polishes scratch and mar the finish. You may not be able to see it, but under a microscope it can be obvious. In some situations, I’ve seen polished coins that were perfect save for one or two scratches caused by polishing go for half the price they would have if they were left alone.
As to melt silver, it is also referred to as “junk silver” – coins so worn, they’re worth only their silver melt value.
It has nothing to do with the “amount” that’s been removed. Not all coins, direct from the Mint, are equal. They can have a variety of surfaces, e.g mirror-like, satin, dull, etc., and there’s a niche of collectors for each type. For example, I prefer a coin that has a “satin” surface. I think satin coins have a richness that’s not apparent (to me) in other types of surfaces. But polishing the coin and removing just the surface ruins the appearance of the coin. Of course the amount removed is negligible, but it’s the layer that gives the coin its appearance.
To me, this says it all. Any “flaw” that you have to break out a microscope to find seems like not much of a flaw. Rather, it seems like an arbitrary reason to devalue a coin. After all, we’re talking about objects that clanked around in people’s pockets for years, banging up against each other and whatever other objects were around. How much “damage” is a little polish really doing?
Yeah I know I’m a lone voice crying in the wilderness on this one, but it all seems so silly. Like something cooked up to justify the existence of professional graders.
ETA: panache45, if you are talking about otherwise mint coins that’s one thing, but if you are talking about previously circulated coins, the “No polish!” proscription seems ridiculous.
Not true. Take quarters from 1932-1964. Circulated coins from that period of time have a value related only to the silver. There are only two coins in that run that have a value over silver in circulated condition–the 1932-D and the 1932-S.
It’s a matter of “how many are available” vs. “how many people want them”. If ones with no scratches are extremely rare, and ones with microscopic scratches are rather common, then you just turned something rare (and thus very valuable to a collector) into something much more common, and thus easy to obtain. On most coins, that would make no difference, since they are already fairly worn, but if you are not a collector, how do you know this is just one of the run-of-the-mill ones, and not one of the extremely rare (in present condition) ones? You don’t.
Collectors want the item they are collecting to be in the best possible condition they can afford. If those microscopic scratches are all that make the difference between something common and something rare, you can damn well bet they want the scratchless one if they can get it. Your polishing it may not seem to make much difference to you, but in terms of rarity of unpolished ones, that tiny difference in condition could make a profound difference in number available, and thus a profound difference in price.
Since you don’t know, not being a collector, about the relative rarity of polished vs unpolished ones of that particular date, you are taking a small risk (it probably won’t matter much) of making a very large price mistake.
But isn’t the whole idea of collecting coins inherently silly? In fact, most collectors of most things seem pretty silly. But what collectors of all types want is the best possible original object, not an improved version and not a reproduction. If you allowed improvements and reproductions, you’d have no real scarcity and no basis for collector value.
That’s true if we’re talking collector value. But silver coins as bullion are slightly more valuable than scrap silver by the OZ. They sell worn US silver coins as bullion all the time.
I have a question that isn’t about coins, but about polishing silver: I have an antique silver hand mirror that belonged to my great-great grandmother. It’s absolutely beautiful (Art Nouveau), but it’s covered in tarnish, and not the beautiful, rainbow patina, but a kind of filthy-looking pale greyish. I would love to set it out on my shelf, but it looks absolutely horrible as it is.
Would it be a sin to polish it, using silver polish and a very soft cloth? There’s no way I’m going to sell it (my grandmother gave it to me – her grandmother gave it to her). Like I said, it’s beautiful, but so filthy looking.