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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;GDJMSP, post: 2421412, member: 112&quot;]A couple of things that should be considered. One - what exactly is that you (and when I say you I mean people in general) are talking about when you use certain terms and phrases ? For example, when a person says this coin has carbon spots, how can I get rid of them ? Are the spots you are talking about actually carbon spots ?</p><p><br /></p><p>Based upon what I have seen, in most cases they are not carbon spots at all, but merely some dark colored spots caused by surface contaminants. It&#039;s the same kind of thing with milk spots,&nbsp; a lot of people refer to almost any light colored spot as being milk spots when they are not milk spots at all, but merely surface contaminants.</p><p><br /></p><p>So what&#039;s the difference or how do you tell the difference ? Experience mainly, you have to know, be familiar with what you are looking at. But the main thing is this, carbon spots and milk spots are not &quot;on&quot; the coin, they are &quot;in&quot; the coin. </p><p><br /></p><p>In other words, surface contaminants are &quot;on&quot; the coin. Surface contaminants can be removed. Carbon spots and milk spots are &quot;in&quot; coin, they are within the metal of the coin itself. And that is why they cannot be undetectably removed because to do so you have to physically remove some of the metal.</p><p><br /></p><p>These are important things to understand, to be aware of, because when you start talking about something or asking questions and call a spot something it isn&#039;t then the person you&#039;re talking to won&#039;t know for sure what you&#039;re actually talking about. Nor will they be able to help you because not describing your problem correctly.</p><p><br /></p><p>What often happens is this - people will see, read, or hear a discussion where dark spots are referred to as carbon spots or light spots are referred to as milk spots. And they very well may be actual carbon spots or milk spots. But the person observing, all they see are light or dark spots, they don&#039;t understand what they really are. So when they see light or dark spots on their coins they refer to them as carbon spots or milk spots - when that&#039;s not what they are at all. </p><p><br /></p><p>And then other people reading or hearing their discussions are exposed to same thing, and they in turn begin to refer to any light or dark spots as milk spots or carbon spots. And it becomes a self perpetuating problem. </p><p><br /></p><p>This is why definitions and terminology are so very important in our hobby. Common usage bastardizes the definitions and terminology to the point that people don&#039;t actually know what they are talking about anymore. They may &quot;think&quot; they are talking about one specific thing when they are actually talking about something entirely different. So you have to learn, you have to become aware, you have to ask questions when you &quot;think&quot; you understand something being discussed, just to make sure that you really do. Otherwise &quot;you&quot; become part of the problem instead of part of the solution.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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