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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;GDJMSP, post: 301277, member: 112&quot;]You are correct, we do disagree. But I think for different reasons. You see, you are only thinking of your coins in your own terms and time frame. Many collectors do not even think of this, but consider it. None of us actually owns the coins we collect, we are merely the temporary keepers or custodians of the coins. The time we have them in our possession is but a blink in the lifetime of the coin. Allow me to give you a couple of examples.</p><p><br /></p><p>This coin, in its day, would have been considered much as you consider a dirty Lincoln cent - a coin perhaps worth 10 times its face value.</p><p><br /></p><p><img src="http://www.gdjmsp.cointalk.org/coin_pics/France/1649-G%20half%20ecu%20obv.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p>Now, that coin is quite dirty. Do you think it would look better if it were cleaned ? Using your reasoning it would. But if that coin had been cleaned over the years by its various owners, and it was minted in 1649, it certainly would not qualify as this - </p><p><br /></p><p><img src="http://www.gdjmsp.cointalk.org/coin_pics/France/1649-G%20half%20ecu%20slab%20obv.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p>Now, you will probably say something like - but that coin is MS, I can understand wanting to save it. But then what about this coin, it is not MS, struck in 1648.</p><p><br /></p><p><img src="http://www.gdjmsp.cointalk.org/coin_pics/France/1648-K%20ECU%20obv.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Would it have been OK to clean that one ? Both of these coins were quite common when they circulated. There was nothing rare or unusual about them. The were looked upon by the people who used them just like you look at those dirty Lincoln cents. But think about what shape they would be in today, or over the past 350 years, if their previous owners had said, I&#039;d better clean that coin. It would look better in my collection if I did. </p><p><br /></p><p>Should that have happened the coins would undoubtably have been damaged to such a degree that I would not have been able to marvel at what good shape they were in when I owned them. Nor would any later owners.</p><p><br /></p><p>So do you see my point ?[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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