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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;dougsmit, post: 8184770, member: 19463&quot;]There is only one fact about ancient coins: Everything is &#039;opinion&#039;.&nbsp; When you go to sell a coin to someone else, you will need to find someone who shares your opinion about what happened to the coin since it was made and whether that disqualifies the coin as acceptable, desirable, valuable etc.&nbsp; If you plan to keep the coin forever and be buried with it, only your opinion matters.&nbsp; 99.99% of ancient coins are &#039;details&#039; coins by modern standards rather like modern collectors consider metal detector finds.&nbsp; We all allow cleaning of surface dust and lightly adhered soil from ancients but when you start leaving marks like those scratches most of us have no interest in the coin unless it has some special value as a great rarity.&nbsp; In time, the surface of a coin corrodes so it is impossible to remove this &#039;patina&#039; without exposing the metal that started under the surface no matter how it is done.&nbsp; The most important skill in cleaning coins is recognizing when it will be possible to improve a coin and when it would be better just to walk away.&nbsp; There are professionals who are very good at this.&nbsp; I am not one.&nbsp; Cleaning coins is a different hobby than collecting them.&nbsp; I do not find it at all enjoyable.&nbsp; There are a million coins out there.&nbsp; We each can decide which we want in our collections. I do not want the Hadrian. Below are five coins, all the same type and legend, that I considered worth having despite the fact than none are perfect and all have been cleaned to varying degrees.&nbsp; Only a few people here would want even one of them.&nbsp; I may be the only person who wants them all including the one on the right which was my first of the type.&nbsp; That is the hobby of ancient coins.&nbsp; If you must have perfect proofs, you will be happier collecting moderns.</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1431554[/ATTACH][/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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