To clean ( conserve) or not to clean your coins.

Simple answer - no. But if you look hard enough you can find a method described in this book or that article and another method described in some other book or article. And these methods are often written about by highly respected names. Some of these methods will be to use soap, water and a soft brush. Or to use baking soda and soft brush, or to use this and use that and use something else. And given the author, people accept these methods and use them.

Problem is, the people using these methods described in the books or articles take the article entirely out of context. They seem to think that the method will work on "their" coin while it was the author's intent that the method only be used on certain coins, coins that are already damaged so badly that the harsh method described is not going to hurt the coin any more than it already is. Or they (people today) fail to recognize that the book or article they got the method from was written back when harsh cleaning of coins was acceptable and widely used.

We have the same kind of problem today when people submit just about any coin to NCS expecting them to be able to work some miracle on a coin that is long beyond any help. They don't understand that only certain coins can be helped and that only certain issues can be corrected - regardless of the method used.

Now Thad may some day publish a book that attempts to describe various harmless methods for cleaning coins. But where he's going to have a problem is when he tries to explain how to identify the coins that can even be helped and what method should be used for each. THAT is the biggie. For the ability to do that requires more knowledge and experience than 95% of the collectors out there have.

Books can only go so far. Learning requires experience and experience can only be gained by doing, and doing many, many times.