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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;+VGO.DVCKS, post: 8061565, member: 110504&quot;]Sorry; couldn&#039;t stop myself in time.&nbsp; (Yep, other people have posted while this was in progress.)&nbsp; This is one, apparently structural phenomenon that goes some distance toward vindicating collectors who have a more relaxed attitude toward condition generally.&nbsp; (For instance, who actually <i>like </i>earlier medieval coins, with their historical resonance as the primary criterion.)</p><p>Past a certain point, thanks to this nefarious practice, the endemic emphasis on esthetics among Classical collectors ends up being a zero-sum game.&nbsp; Do you want an historical artifact (or, as I like to say, a miniature historical document), <i>or </i>something pretty ...ultimately for its <i>own </i>sake?</p><p>Even with earlier medievals (c. 9th-13th centuries), you still get to deal with the issue of overcleaning.&nbsp; There, the irony is that a lot of what otherwise looks like recent hoard finds ends up being polished to a shine which fails to replicate what a given example never had, while arbitrarily destroying the patina that the coin acquired over centuries in the ground.&nbsp; --This is in reference to certain dealers, <i>not </i>people, some of whom post here, who actually know how cleaning is done.&nbsp; The irony you can wind up with is a coin which hasn&#039;t seen the light of day since it was buried, often within a year or two of its issue, which now looks like something you could find at a gift shop in Disneyland.</p><p>...This is all about the level to which some dealers are willing to stoop.&nbsp; Not to cast aspersions on folks who know what to look out for; more along the lines of, <b>Why </b>do dealers do this in the <b>First Place?</b>&nbsp; My recommendation to them would be, Go back to dealing in used cars.&nbsp; You&#039;ll make better money, from people who are as dumb as you wished they were.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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