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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;PyrotekNX, post: 88374, member: 3918&quot;]Older coins, especially from the mid 1800s and before were commonly cleaned by collectors.&nbsp; Virtually any grader will slab a cleaned coin prior to the 1850s just as long as it wasn&#039;t harshly cleaned. Cleaning was a commonly accepted practice in those days.&nbsp; Virtually all silver coins pre 1850 have been cleaned.&nbsp; </p><p>Coins at various museums were routinely dipped and even polished.&nbsp; There have been stories of museum curators drinking out of the wrong cup while they were up late cleaning coins with potassium cyanide.</p><p><br /></p><p>Flying Eagle cents are on the cusp on that era and most have been cleaned at one point or another in their history.&nbsp; There is a difference of being lightly cleaned and retoning naturally over the course of 100 years and being scoured with a brass brush, whizzed and retoned in an oven.</p><p><br /></p><p>Older and rarer coins have a much more relaxed grading scale because there was no such thing as a ms70 in those days.</p><p><br /></p><p>Coins were also much more utilitarian compared to today.&nbsp; Coins were the most common form of currency and were worth much more than today.&nbsp; Factory workers and coal miners made less than a dollar a day&#039;s wages.&nbsp; Many young numismaticists don&#039;t appreciate just how much $5 was in the 19th century.&nbsp; It would take several months of saving to get a $20 double eagle.</p><p><br /></p><p>US currency had a lot of buying power and typically coin collecting was reserved for the very rich.&nbsp; Coin collections were typically much smaller as well.&nbsp; This means that individual coins got more attention.&nbsp; There wasn&#039;t any such thing as non reacting, protective holders until the late 20th century.&nbsp; 3rd party grading and encapsulating started only about 20 years ago.</p><p><br /></p><p>The vast majority of gold and silver coins were melted.&nbsp; It is not uncommon for a modern collector to have 50,000 or more coins but it was unheard of in those days.</p><p><br /></p><p>I would not mind having this Flying Eagle in my collection.&nbsp; It has very strong details and isn&#039;t dinged or scratched up.&nbsp; I think when PCGS runs out high grade FE cents to grade, they will consider grading problem coins.&nbsp; I believe there are a couple of graders that will still net grade problem coins.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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