Is it just me or does anyone else notice just how many circulated 1921 Peace dollars are cleaned? Many are harshly cleaned showing scratches or have been polished. Given the date of 1921, I think back in those years, but am not sure, many coins were "shined up" with no regard for original surfaces by collectors. Could this be the reason, since it was probably a bit more difficult for date filling collectors to find? Maybe they wanted them to look nice and shiny? I suspect many of the rest were polished up too but since have been melted and the 21's were saved in any condition. ( Maybe I answered my own question.) But I would like to know if my observations and theory are correct.
Ask yourself this - how often do you see questions asked by somebody wanting to make their coins look better ? I don't know about you but I see an overabundance of them, and have for the 10 years this forum has existed. There are thousands of threads and posts about it. Now consider something else, that is happening in a time when harshly cleaning coins is NOT an acceptable practice. So, just imagine how often it happened in a time when just about everybody harshly cleaned their coins - in a time when that WAS the acceptable practice. Heck it was recommended.
