I really took this coin to the cleaners

Certainly, if you define "harshly cleaned" as "any cleaning more than necessary to identify the coin," then you can apply your definition to the OP coin and call it harshly cleaned. But it's doubtful you'll get agreement that this is a reasonable definition of "harshly cleaned" from any other ancient coin collectors (surely not from me). There is a huge and easily recognizable difference between removing surface encrustations and cleaning a coin harshly.

The surface encrustations that were removed from the OP coin were not part of the coin's original minting, nor were they put there when the coin was handled probably thousands of times during its circulation. They weren't part of a normally occurring chemical reaction (e.g., silver naturally tarnishing due to contact with airborne hydrogen sulfide). They're simply crud whose removal restored the coin's devices and surfaces to a more accurate state of the coin's condition.

 

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By this definition, almost every coin on the ancients forum is harshly cleaned. When you stop at the coin being identifiable you end up with a halfway cleaned coin like this one started as. Plenty of coins come out of the ground fully identifiable but with fine detail obscured and those coins should in most cases still be cleaned. That's simply the reality of collecting ancients.

 

As I've stated in my response -- you collect what you want and I'll collect what I want. I'm not out to change your opinion and you certainly are not going to change mine. I really do not care what standard you apply to the coins you like, but allow me the same courtesy. We come from two different eras of the hobby. Neither of you seem to grasp the concept that collecting methods and collecting standards have changed for the hobby in my lifetime and are likely to change again within yours. I have not nor will I ever adopt many of the "new" changes for the coins I enjoy collecting. Even though these harshly cleaned coins would never fit well into my collection, I wish both of you (and every one commenting on this thread) well as you collect those coins which you enjoy and are good fits for your collections.

 

The Saddle Ridge Hoard...

 

RS, Nice!!
~Doug

 

I reshot the coin with less harsh lighting earlier because I felt the lighting was way too bright in the OP image. The new image isn't perfect but it gives a much better idea of how it looks in-hand:

 

I would never denigrate another's preferences but it appears that my attempts at providing insight into ancient collectors' standards (as they differ from modern collectors) have been misinterpreted as discourteous. This isn't the case. You're absolutely entitled to your preference for minimally cleaned ancient coins.

Rather, I've been trying to elucidate the fundamental differences between collectors of ancient vs. collectors of modern coins. Dougsmit said it best -- collecting ancients is almost an entirely different hobby from collecting modern coins.

The cleaning issue is one of those major differences, and as far as I can determine from literature about ancient coins, this standard hasn't changed in the centuries since authors started writing about collecting ancients. I'll accept your assertion that the standards for cleaning modern coins has changed in the last 50 years, but as far as I can determine, this simply isn't true for ancients. That's one of the points that I was trying to make.

You can't possibly know whether or not this true, and I'd be surprised if it were. In the late 1950s and early 1960s I collected U.S. coins out of circulation. If you started collecting coins more than 55 - 60 years ago, then you might be a bit older than I, but probably not by much.

In addition, "the hobby" to which you refer isn't quite the same hobby in which I'm engaged. There isn't just one monolithic "coin collecting" hobby. From the context of your post, it appears that "the hobby" to which you refer is collecting modern coins and you'd prefer to have those standards be the same in the hobby of collecting ancient coins. In my experience, this simply isn't the case. I had to learn and relearn about collecting ancients vs. what I remembered (very little) from collecting moderns, and I wasn't in a position to impose my own preferences on a hobby to which I was a newcomer. I had no choice except to be open-minded about my new hobby and learn from my dealer as well as others far more experienced than I'll ever be.

It was my hope that this discussion of your preferences vs. ancient coin collectors' standards might provide some insights for everyone involved in this thread, but unfortunately that doesn't appear to be happening. Nevertheless, you're always invited and welcome to post your ancient coins in this forum, along with your comments and observations about why those coins in your collection appeal to you.

 

red_spork => nice cleaning job, my coin-friend

Wanna see mine?




... wha? ...

Did I miss somethin'?

 

I believe the worst thing that happened to the hobby was the removal of silver from the coins in 1965. It is not that the silver was gone but that there was a line drawn and kids like I had meen a few years earlier no longer had a chance of finding worn but identifiable treasures in their fathers' pocket change fostering an interest in the hobby. They were limited to cents which had a design change, followed by an alloy change in 1982 and nickels which can still be found in circulation back to 1938. Now the damage has been done and few will be entering collecting hobbies save buying things made to be collected. I guess, in one sense, ancients are made to be collected since they spend poorly these days but the idea of kids starting a 50+ year run in the hobby may not be what it once was.

 

It is really awesome now!