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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;John Burgess, post: 4864417, member: 105098&quot;]Let me try to clarify your concern. When a coin is struck, brand new, fresh from the mint it&#039;s considered &quot;BU&quot;. Or uncirculated or &quot;Mint State&quot;. </p><p>Once it starts recieving wear, touching, rubbing, sorting, banging around its grade drops. Visible signs of circulation wear will exclude it from MS and put it in AU... or lower grade.</p><p><br /></p><p>Circulation wear is circulation wear. It will lower the grade. Damage on the other hand can exclude it from being graded at all. Things like carving initial into it, soaking it in citric acid and wearing it down, partially cutting it with metal shears, a whole bunch of things.</p><p><br /></p><p>Now, all coins in circulation have been touched by someone, somewhere unless they are mint fresh and new, especially coins with signs of wear from circulation. So many fingerprints that fingerprints no longer even matter really it&#039;s all part of the toning or patina and you can&#039;t tell them apart anymore. </p><p><br /></p><p>There are circumstances, especially on collector proof coins that a single fingerprint stands out like a sore thumb. </p><p><br /></p><p>Anyways. Gunk and dirt, glue, gum, verdigris, there are things that if left on a coin can be detrimental and then there things like touching on a circulated coin that amounts to &quot;one more tiny bit of wear&quot; on a worn coin.</p><p><br /></p><p>Obviously you don&#039;t want to eat hot wings or cheetos and coin roll hunt while doing it. But in most situations touching the front or back of a circulated coin is harmless besides a little more friction wearing it down a little more.</p><p><br /></p><p>One or a couple fingerprint on a brand new shiny coin = problem</p><p>A hundred fingerprints on a coin = circulation wear, some toning of the metal and an even surface color, unless crud builds up around the bust or lettering, date, the devices of the coin, in which case what&#039;s underneath could be protected, or be getting eaten away depending on what that crud is made of.</p><p><br /></p><p>You are overthinking it. If it&#039;s a circulated coin already, it&#039;s been handled for a long time, you should be concerned with the crud or gunk or green or blue patches, or black spots on copper but something circulated may have these problems to deal with and neutralize. You really don&#039;t want a gunk that really shouldn&#039;t be there, sitting on a coin for a long time.</p><p><br /></p><p>If it&#039;s just random circulated coins, fingerprints aren&#039;t really an issue, one more ain&#039;t gonna hurt.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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