Hi, I live in the Rapid City, SD area. Some of the dealers in my area clean coins. They call it conserving the coin but I call it cleaning. I do not have a problem with dealers selling cleaned coins as long as they say so when they sell them. Our local coin club (Black Hills Coin And Stamp Club) feels the same way as I. AS of right now not one dealer in my area is a member of the local coin club. So what do you think, CLEAN OR NOT TO CLEAN, That is the question?
Conserving a coin is fine. Dipping a coin in a protective coating so it is no longer exposed to the elements is fine in certain cases. Like the Fugio with a bad case of verdigis/corosion that was refused by NCS.... Cleaning a coin is all kinds of wrong. When I say cleaning, I refer to the act of polishing it up to make it "new." Go to a show sometime or one of the dealers in your area. Check out some SLQs. If they are BLAST WHITE/BLAZING WHITE and the shield's star has no lines in it/the star is not there, chances are, the coin was cleaned. Thus, the need for loupes and microscopes to see the coin. I am trying my hardest to complete an XF+ raw SLQ set for an album. Unfortunately, I see a lot of cleaned coins. I would be more than happy with an XF coin that is gray in color vs a cleaned XF coin that is "minty fresh." Cleaning and conserving and preserving are all chemical reactions. When a coin is cleaned or shined up, the chemical agent actually takes a layer of the coin off to get to a "new" layer shiney layer. To me, that is defacing the coin.
I boiled a buffalo nickel in water to remove some wax not long ago. It didn't take the coloration off or anything, just the wax. I figured water wouldn't hurt. Correct?
Two sides to every story. Why do they call it conserving and what types of techniques do they use. There is a big difference between conserving a coin and cleaning one. Just because one puts the coin in something, or puts something on the coin, doesn't mean it has been cleaned.
I have been told no to do anything to a coin , even a soft rag could possibly scratch a coin. Please correct me if I am wrong
Don't clean coins but conserving them is legitimate. Kind of a debated topic I argue with a dealer friend of mine about.
From Q. David Bowers masterpiece book, Grading Coins By Photographs, page 27: "Don't even THINK of wiping a Proof with a soft cloth. These procedures will simply add hairlines to the surface of the coin, most notably on Proofs. The process is irreversible."
People tend to get hung up on words, including me. Cleaning is one of those words. When somebody mentions cleaning a coin and there is a negative conotation what they really mean is harshly cleaning. Harshly cleaning a coin does harm to the coin - it changes the surface of the coin. Cleaning a coin does no harm to the coin and it does not change the surface of the coin. Examples - You can dip a silver coin in acetone to remove some substances from the coin like glue or tape residue - thus you are cleaning the coin. But you are doing no harm to the coin and you are not changing the surface of the coin. You can soak a coin in distilled water in order to remove dirt and grime from the coin. Thus you are cleaning the coin. But you are doing no harm to the coin and you are not changing the surface of the coin. Kind of hard to call these two things anything but cleaning. You can take a coin and scrub it with a toothbrush and baking soda to try and remove dirt and grime. And thus you are harshly cleaning the coin and doing harm to the coin. And you are definitely changing the surface of the coin because the toothbrush by itself puts lots of fine scrathes on the surface of the coin and the abrasive baking soda adds even more of the same. Same thing happens if you rub a coin with a cloth, regardless of how soft the cloth is. You still change the surface of the coin and thus you are harshly cleaning the coin. Now you can call cleaning conserving if you want, but that doesn't mean it isn't cleaning because it is cleaning by definition. And you can say harsh cleaning, improper cleaning, or harmful cleaning. But in the end it's all the same thing. All of them mean you are doing harm to the coin instead of just cleaning it. Cleaning does no harm. Harsh cleaning always does harm. That's the difference and the only difference.
