No don't clean!

D***!!!!! I knew it!!!!!

 

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Your secret cleaning decoder ring will arrive after you denounce cleaning by the masses.

It has Doug's avatar on it.

-The Roundtable

 

hahahahahaha :d

 

This is the way I see it.

In general cleaning is bad.

Sometimes there are coins that are just so fugly or hazy that they just beg to be cleaned.

Is there a wrong way to do it? Yes.
Is there a right way to do it? debatable

Should someone who has never properly cleaned a coin attempt it? Sure but on a worthless piece of junk first to see what the effects are and know that the effects long term may be bad if not done properly.

To me the best way is not to try it at all, if it must be done send it to the pros like NCS, their fees are quite reasonable.

Back to the OP, yes the article is interesting and educational to try on cheap worthless coins to see the effect those methods have on a coin so you can identify when it has been done to more expensive coins.

 

I was watching a show on the History channel about coin making at the US Mint. Did you know that they clean and polish the planchet before they strike the coin? If you want to get technical, all coins in recent times have received some cleaning during the minting process; obviously, some bettter than others (e.g. MS60 to MS70).

 

But that is all done before the coin is struck. Once the planchet is struck, turning it into a coin, the metal flow obliterates all traces of any of that cleaning & polishing.

So what you're saying is that we should strike the coin after we clean it?
(sorry...couldn't resist:mouth

Edit If we struck after we cleaned...wouldn't that lead to a vicious cycle?

 

I suspect this number is about right but you have to allow for the fact that 70% of the coins found will not be cleanable even using 'correct' techniques. Being buried in dirt for a thousand years can have a negative effect but being buried for a few years in a field that was treated with chemical fertilizers can be worse. Ancient coins that are found get sorted and sold according to the likelihood of something worthwhile coming out of the dirt. The ones amateurs like me get were not considered worth sending to the professional cleaners. Most dealers know that there are more people willing to buy a silver coin that is silver in color than grey/black so many coins are cleaned more than I might have preferred.

Modern collectors expect their modern coins to have spent their lives in a bank vault. Ancients that are lucky come from a pot or chest that was buried rather than lost individually in the soil. Sometimes the hoard will be fused together into a lump and the coins in the center of the lump will be pristine compared to individual field finds from an open field. If 30% of the coins found are being cleaned in such a way that they look good, we are doing pretty well. I probably 'ruin' over 70% of the coins I clean if we define 'ruin' as make a mark I wish I had not made. On the other hand, if I start with a featureless lump and end up with a readable and attractive coin, so be it. I'd rather have a lightly scratched coin (all of the coins in my coin purse are scratched) than a featureless lump of soil and mineral deposits.