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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;GDJMSP, post: 1465457, member: 112&quot;]It&#039;s probably a waste of time but I am going to try and explain this again. I believe a large part of the reason that many people don&#039;t understand the aversion to &quot;cleaned coins&quot; is because there is no aversion to cleaned coins. There is an aversion to <u>harshly</u> cleaned coins.</p><p><br /></p><p>You can clean a million coins and nobody will ever say a word to you about it. And the TPGs will slab every single one of them. In fact the TPGs have slabbed literally millions of cleaned coins. But they do not slab harshly cleaned coins.</p><p><br /></p><p>The difference between the two things is this - you can clean a coin and not harm the coin. But if you harshly clean a coin you have harmed the coin. It&#039;s just that simple. And that really is all there is to it.</p><p><br /></p><p>Some bring up the idea of restoring old things and say that the restoration does not reduce the value so why should cleaning a coin reduce the coin&#039;s value ? Well, as I said above, cleaning a coin does not reduce its value. Harshly cleaning the coin does however reduce the value. And the very same thing applies to other things as well.</p><p><br /></p><p>Say you have a Louis XIIII table, but it looks all dirty and grungy. And you want to make it look better. So you get some cleaning supplies and go about cleaning it.&nbsp; That&#039;s all well and good, as long as all you remove from the table is the dirt and grime - without harming the original finish on the table. And doin it that way will not reduce the value of the table. But if you were take a Brillo pad or a piece of steel wool to the table in order to clean it - you would absolutely reduce the value of that table.</p><p><br /></p><p>Or say you got the table clean without harming it. But you still thought it looked ugly and should, or could, look better. So you set about refinishing the table. And when you are all done you think the table looks beautiful ! However, your actions will have greatly reduced the value of that table.</p><p><br /></p><p>Same thing applies to old guns. You can find what you think is a valuable old gun and you clean it up. But once clean you think it could look better. So you strip off the original bluing and re-blue the gun. Then you refinish the stock. Well, if you do that, the gun sure looks better, but you have cut its value to a fraction of what it was when it was all dirty. Just because you wanted to make it look better.</p><p><br /></p><p>It&#039;s same thing with coins, and just about anything else you can think of. Once you change, alter, or harm, the originality, you reduce the value.</p><p><br /></p><p>And changing, altering, or harming, the originality is harsh cleaning.</p><p><br /></p><p>Removing dirt and grime without changing, altering, or harming,&nbsp; the originality is cleaning.</p><p><br /></p><p>And originality has many different stages. With coins we call it grading. A coin can be graded VF20 and still be original. Or it can be graded MS67 and still be original. Same thing with antique tables and guns. The coin, the table, the gun, all of them can have wear and still retain their originality. But once the coin, the table, or the gun, is damaged it is no longer original. And depending upon what item you are talking about damage is defined as many different things.</p><p><br /></p><p>Harsh cleaning causes damage and changes originality. Cleaning causes no damage and does not change originality.</p><p><br /></p><p>It is not a concept that is unique to coins. Rather it is a concept that applies to just about everything there is.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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