Quite often gold is not affected by being immersed in salt water. But you make a valid point. It's the same old question - is conserving the same as cleaning ? The only answer I can give you is this - if you can clean a coin and have it turn out no different than if NCS conserved it - then your coin won't be body bagged either. But that's the problem - very few collectors can do that. So it's not so much a matter of whether it's been cleaned it or not - instead it's a matter of WHO cleaned it and what were the results.
I think it is worth experimenting with ultrasonic cleaners, high pressure steam, and even microcrystalline wax. I think a lot of people are satisfied to collect unaltered coins, but aren't particularly interested in collecting coin dirt. At some point, the obsession against cleaning becomes a disorder, and hobbyists shouldn't necessarily be guided by the people who are most afflicted by this disorder. So for me, a coin that has never been dipped, wiped, whizzed, or polished; and has the original patina; but is missing a few tiny bits of little Jimmy's snot between the details from the time he spent the coin when he had a cold in 1910 because somebody ran it through an ultrasound machine is a perfectly collectible coin. I hope this doesn't offend anyone, and it isn't aimed at anyone. It's just an observation and opinion from someone who doesn't necessarily accept the idea that the hobby can't be improved by trying new things that do not alter the metal in any way.
