This thread is a great example of lemming type behavior that I believe gives rise to the illogical and down right laughable behaviour of some collectors...We are all human, we all make mistakes, we can be wrong or right...no one is perfect. Some people I believe are downright deceptive though most are not so on purpose. They have been told something and they assume it is true, they have never taken the time to verify. My main advice here is do not assume someone is beyond error because he is a long time collector, a moderator, is right a lot of the time, you respect him...get advice then look to confirm the advice is valid. In this case it is simple...try holding a coin in your gloved hand (softest of cotton) and look to see if you see marks after you release it...I have done this myself with an almost flawless ASE and a Krugerrand and have observed that it did NOT leave any noticable marks down to 3x magnification...When I photograph my coins I lay them flat on black velvet...I might flip them and the coin my lightly rub agains tthe velvet when doing so...never a scratch. So I can only conclude that the assertion is not correct.
I see this lemming behaviour often with the cleaning taboo, more on this forum than some others. A man comes to this forum, he has a coin he says he has cleaned and wants to know the worth. A member comes in having never seen the coin, and not knowing whether the guy scrubbed it with sand paper or simply dipped it in distilled water and informs him immediatly that 'It lost any value it might have had when you cleaned it.' This is just bad advice coming from a person who could errantly be viewed as someone who knows what he is talking about. I see this ALL the time on this forum and even the great GD will probably say the key words that would be missing in that statement would be 'harshly' or 'improperly'. But someone told this guy 'cleaning is bad' and he passes it along until people no longer will take it coin by coin, help figure out what CAN be done, they just say 'cleaning=bad'
In the end, I am fine with settling to disagree. I have handled most every coin I have with cotton gloves, I have held them flat in my palm, flipped them to the otherside while in the palm, held them between my fingers, more often by the rims when it comes to FDC and historical coins because I am also anal. The simple fact is, if I handed you this coin:
and asked you to find a single scratch made by my soft cotton gloves when I handled it and held it in my palm (where I am sure it slide a bit on the cotton surface)...you simply would not find any...thats the facts...You dont have to place your faith in me or anyone else, you dont have to reread posts and tally the amount of times I have been wrong compared to GD, you simply have to observe it yourself. If you prefer to take other peoples word for it, fair enough.
but I will leave you with the assurance that in my experience, and I have tested this...all the way up to a very light rub with soft cotton, I have yet to see a mark made on a coin with soft cloth. I would concede that with the right amount of pressure it would certainly be possible, but not just by holding them...enough said from me.
