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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;A.J., post: 1465088, member: 35316&quot;]I am with you on a lot of points, and I think the bias against cleaning is somewhat arbitrary.&nbsp; But then again, I can&#039;t understand why the market bears more for a Lincoln cent with a bit of doubling than it does for a common silver denarius.</p><p><br /></p><p>But the point is that this is what the market does, in fact, bear.&nbsp; It is not false, even if you or I might think it is irrational, it is what is actually going on in the world.&nbsp; Cleaned modern coins lose their numismatic value.</p><p><br /></p><p>That&#039;s because people who are interested in modern coins are operating on a microscopic level.&nbsp; To say a cleaned coin is better looking than an uncleaned coin is based on an illusion.&nbsp; When view under a microscope, a cleaned coin is a world away from an uncleaned coin.&nbsp; So a cleaned coin might have a superficial resemblance to an uncleaned coin in good condition, but in reality, and to someone who is looking for an original surface on their coin, is going to be dismayed to see the original surface off the coin obliterated by cleaning.</p><p><br /></p><p>So cleaning does real damage to a coin, and it isn&#039;t fair to say that people are confusing an attitude towards cleaning with the appearance of the coin, because the appearance of a cleaned coin is, in fact, radically different from an uncleaned coin.</p><p><br /></p><p>Does that difference in appearance really matter?&nbsp; I, personally, do not think so.&nbsp; But I don&#039;t collect with the mindset of most buyers, who are interested in the microscopic surface of the coin.</p><p><br /></p><p>Weird that the market is like that, isn&#039;t it?&nbsp; I&#039;ve heard there was a shift toward placing high emphasis on grade of coins at some point in the mid to late twentieth century.&nbsp;&nbsp; Prior to that collectors were more interested in filling sets.&nbsp; One has to wonder if this was an artificial shift, engineered by some sort of marketing campaign to benefit the collectible coin industry.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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