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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;cdb1950, post: 44904, member: 1735&quot;]Here&#039;s some food for thought.&nbsp; When you have a coin in your collection, it is yours to do with as you please.&nbsp; From that point of view, you can do whatever you think is best for the coin.&nbsp; When I was 6, I had a small collection of Indian Head cents and I polished each one up to a sparkling shine with an eraser.</p><p><br /></p><p>From another point of view, even though you are the current owner of the coin, in reality you are only the temporary caretaker of the coin.&nbsp; It will some day be passed on or sold to another collector, then another, and another, and so on.&nbsp; As the current caretaker of a collectable that will be passed down to future generations, it could be viewed as your responsibility to ensure that the coin in your possesion is passed on to the future collectors in as good a condition as it was when you received it.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>Unfortunately, the Indian Head cents I had as a kid are ruined for future collectors.&nbsp; They will forever carry the little tiny scratches/hairlines from the polishing with the eraser and will eventually tone to a very unnatural color.&nbsp; (I don&#039;t do that anymore.)</p><p><br /></p><p>On the other hand, as has been mentioned in previous posts, there might be cigarette smoke, PVC residue, or any of a number of other harmful substances coating a coin.&nbsp; In a case like that, thinking about the collector 100 years from now, would it be better to risk permanently altering the coin by cleaning or removing the harmful substance (and some of the natural surface of the coin) or not.&nbsp; That can be a tough decision.&nbsp; In addition, cleaning a coin is as much an art as it is a science, so it wouldn&#039;t be too hard to do more damage than the original residue might have caused.</p><p><br /></p><p>Don&#039;t know if this will answer any questions about cleaning coins, but it might give you a different perspective to ponder while making your choices.</p><p><br /></p><p>P.S. - Most of the sticky crud on coins these days is the PVC residue from 40 years of thinking that was the ultimate way to store and preserve coins.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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