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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;eddiespin, post: 643432, member: 4920&quot;]OK, I heard enough...</p><p><br /></p><p>It appears a little hypocritical to me to in one breath condemn a collector for trying to learn how to improve and/or clean his coins while in the next breath be applauding an outfit like NCS, e.g., for trying to do the same thing to the coins submitted to them for a fee. I think we&#039;re all learned enough here to know, cleaning coins is an exacting activity. But at the same time I think we all also know, cleaned coins pass the scrutiny every day, they end up in slabs, even acid-dipped ones, and nobody is the wiser. Or, to be more frank, nobody cares. The TPGs have the &quot;out&quot; for that, the coins are &quot;market acceptable.&quot; End of story, there. </p><p><br /></p><p>Having said that, IMHO, it&#039;s also altogether arrogant to conceive of <i>proper </i>cleaning as brain surgery. One wouldn&#039;t think of operating on somebody&#039;s brain, one would leave that to the pros. But, let&#039;s face it, that&#039;s hardly what proper cleaning is. Anybody can learn it. NCS, et al., might not like us to think that. But, grab some sense. You have to be particular in your methods, sure, that&#039;s a given. And, the best methods, I&#039;d think most would agree, are still proprietary and confidential (at least, at this point in time), and, rightfully so. Take Thad&#039;s little concoction, for example. Would anybody among us even dream of asking him, &quot;Hey, buddy, what&#039;s in that ship(sp?)?&quot; Same goes for NCS, et al., as those formulas and methods are just as rightfully proprietary and confidential. But, again, this isn&#039;t brain surgery. And, everybody here is astute enough to know, you don&#039;t experiment anew on anything worth anything. And, one is going to misfire, from time to time, that&#039;s another foregone conclusion. Chalk it up to trial and experience and the learning curve. But, this is nothing the average collector can&#039;t learn, and learn to do as well as the pros, I&#039;m convinced.</p><p><br /></p><p>One last point, before I shove off. Let&#039;s think of that term, &quot;market acceptable.&quot; We&#039;re not talking about the folks on eBay, necessarily. Then again, we&#039;re not talking about the market a gentleman like Eliasberg, Louis, Jr. hangs in, either, necessarily. We&#039;re talking about the TPGs. &quot;Market acceptable&quot; is their term. We&#039;re talking about the average collector market that deals in their slabs, primarily, and, from time to time, some raw coins. I&#039;m sure, were we to kept at this, we&#039;d figure out ways to improve our coins through cleaning and/or dipping that would be TPG &quot;acceptable&quot; to that discriminating &quot;market.&quot; But, we&#039;d have to keep at it. Throw up our hands in defeat, and, of course, we&#039;d never get there, but forever remain in darkness, ignernt.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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