What Constitutes Cleaning of a Coin ?

I am not an expert in this field and thought i would get the forum,s
Opinion, i got this idea from another post and thought i would ask.

So what does constitute cleaning ?

I am from the old school, so have always thought that mild dish
soap and warm water with no abrasives or brushes used would
Not violate a coins integrity, am i wrong ?

 

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Gotta agree with Doug here to separate cleaning and harsh cleaning. Cleaning would be rinsing/soaking with any pure solvent or dipping in coin dip (treatment with other chemicals would have to be considered on a case-by-case basis). Use of abrasive techniques would be harsh cleaning. I, personally, find nothing wrong with dish soap, but would caution to THOROUGHLY remove any residue which could lead to future ugly toning.

 

Think about it like this: if you wash your plates with dish soap, would you consider them cleaned?

Here is a Walking Liberty half that has been treated with dish soap and water. I once considered collecting these in EF, but realized that this was a series rife with problems and grading issues. I showed this to a big collector of Walkers (anyone remember SuperDave on the NGC forums?) and he educated me on soap-wahsed coins. A dish soap treated coin will have a lighter gray appearance than it should.

To be honest, most people would have no problem with this at all. But if you know what you are looking for, it just looks sorta weird.

 

Remember, we want things to be authentic. We want 101-year-old sweat and fecal matter on our coins.

 

eeeeeewwwwwwww. The soft eraser cannot hurt this coin.
The General

 

Stop telling people to use erasers on coins. PLEASE.

Pick a few of your favorite eraser-cleaned circulating coins, and send them to a third-party grader. I promise that every coin cleaned with an eraser will come back as ungradeable.

 

I'm not a fan of using any type of soap. You can get color that shows the coin was messed with.

 

In my opinion, you and @SuperDave miss the point, as any ten-year-old can see and describe that surface as "drab," "lifeless," a "stiff," and that's all that's meaningful to any collector. "Cleaned," on the other hand, isn't descriptive of anything, and is just as unhelpful. Learn to look at coins, articulate what you're looking at, then decide what, if anything, it's worth to you, based on that indicia and not any abstract characterization nobody can yet define in any intelligible much less useful way.

 

Soap and water are a form of cleaning. Less abrasive but a cleaning nevertheless.

 

It can be destructive of the surface, and even if not, residue left can cause unsightly toning if not thoroughly rinsed.

 

Moderator edit - @physics-fan3.14 , your post breaches the forum rules (i.e. no personal attacks). Whilst you are absolutely allowed to disagree with someone and argue a point, personal attacks are not permitted.

 

A “cleaned” coin is any coin which has had material removed from it at any point in its life. It only becomes improperly cleaned when an expert can look at it and tell it has been cleaned.

 

The coin as presented here can be found almost anywhere for around 8-20 bucks each. I have found many coins in much better condition. Again, I have examined many coins under a high intensity LED light and found that there isn't any abrasion to speak of. However, stains remain a problem. I still believe that dirty coins are meant to hide the grading and not using a liquid cleaner is always better. The details are brought out more and true enough the damage can be more clearly seen.
The General

 

Define material ? for instance if i found a quarter that i unearthed, and
Washed the dirt away, that would be considered clean? just want to
Have a better understanding

 

Any material, from dust to encrustation to the metal of the coin itself.

 

Yes, but sometimes "cleaning" makes it better visually, etc. and can improve it from it's current condition.

 

Great information not being a coin expert...LOL. i always thought
That cleaning meant " harsh" now i know the difference.

 

It comes down to the difference between types of cleaning (ie conservation) and everything thing else.

 

Gee...you should have said that before.