sweating A procedure in which coins are placed in a bag and shaken vigorously to knock off small pieces of metal. Later these bits of metal are gathered and sold, producing a profit as the coins are returned to circulation at face value.
Sweating
An illegal method employed by some in the past to obtain precious metal, usually gold, from coinage. The coin is treated by acid to "eat away" some of the metal on the coin's surface, and later recovered from the solution.
"Sweating" is an early numismatic term which refers to coins that were placed in bags or small pouches and repeatedly shaken, thus causing small flakes of gold to fall off the "sweated" coins.
(Credit Note for the city of Kahla about 3/4 Mark or 75 pfennig): Depicted on the obverse: Corpulent man in armor with initials RF (Republic of France) sweating after shooting arrows at Mercury (Germany) still tied to a tree, still on the phone, ...
You can learn the meaning of such terms as burnishing, chasing, essai, moose, sweating and weenie.
However, it does not detect sweating, or shaking coins in a bag and collecting the resulting dust. Since this technique removes a smaller amount, it is primarily used on the most valuable coins, primarily gold.
sweating - illegal process of removing gold or silver from the surface of a coin. This method was used during the times when precious metal coins circulated in everyday commerce.
 See also: Coin, Denomination, Quarter, Gold, Obverse
  
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