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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Siggi Palma, post: 1522634, member: 18255&quot;]Good evening fellow collectors, </p><p><br /></p><p>As a few of you know I collect tokens from Iceland. Now some of these tokens are very rare with only a few specimens known to exist. </p><p><br /></p><p>Early this week a man gave me a call and said he had one of those tokens. A 1880 100 Aurar made by Petur J Thorsteinsson a merchant from the town of Bildudalur. This is one of my favourit tokens and I have studdied the history of them and the merchant. They stand for everything I love about collecting. </p><p><br /></p><p>This one is from my collection - Nice patina, and a over all honest piece. Mind you grade is not an issue when it comes to these as you would guess. </p><p><br /></p><p><img src="http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee209/siggipalma/mine.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p>Now this particilour token is one of the rarer ones with less then 8 known to eixst. 6 Privatly owned and 3 in museums if I remember correctly and finding out there is a ninth just made my heart go boom. </p><p><br /></p><p>We agreed on a price ( Grade is not an issue ) he sent a scan wich was a very low reselution scan and it seemed just fine. </p><p><br /></p><p>But today he came and handed me the token and this is what I saw. </p><p><br /></p><p><img src="http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee209/siggipalma/cleaned.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p>My heart sank when I saw it. It is cleaned to the core so to speak with cemicals and brushes. My first reaction was to ask him if he cleaned it even though I saw it was done recently. </p><p><br /></p><p>But even with the token in this state it is still rare and I was trying to figure out what to do. I had a oblegation feeling but when I asked him were he got it from I had to hand it back. </p><p><br /></p><p>Now the law in Iceland is very strickt when it comes to items that are considered a national tresure and all items found that are over 100 years old have to be handed over and in this case it </p><p>seems that he has to hand the token over. And that is the best place for it as it needs decates to get that patina back. </p><p><br /></p><p>Now I get calls every day about coins as I buy and sell and every time I say the same thing &quot; PLEASE DO NOT CLEAN THE COINS &quot; but this time because it was a item close to my heart I forgot. </p><p><br /></p><p>I´m not saying I could have prevented it but still it reminds me that you can not say it often enough &quot; DO NOT CLEAN ANYTHING &quot;. </p><p><br /></p><p>Siggi[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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