Why not clean? Beyond the "cardinal rule"...

http://www.cointalk.com/t42667/

That is the original cement mixer thread immortalized

Now here are some other classics
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Burry your coins in a pipe to protect them
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Burning your coins with lighter fluid
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cleaning your large cents when your done with them
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Pull the Morgans from the Toilet Seat
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OK that is it for now, but I should mention the famous, pay your taxes with gold thread and save money...
but I'll give Jim some rest.

Ruben

 

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Dude, that was depressing to see all of the people who have stopped using cointalk. I just have to wonder...

 

People grow, change, die, get busy..

 

True, but even when I changed into a growing and busy zombie, I have still managed to find a little time for CoinTalk.
Guy

 

Note how your mood is "Dead", which was mentioned in his post

 

Purchasing untarnished coins is one thing. Cleaning the tarnish off is entirely different and with the inexperienced doing it, it cause damage to the coin if they use a brush to clean with, definitely can destroy, or decrease the natural luster of the coin. That's why everyone says NOT to clean coins.

 

I'd like to make one annotation here. Brushing the coin is only an obvious means of destroying it. Just about anything else you can think of will also destroy the coin.

Its not like cleaning a coin is ever acceptable. But the fact is that almost any 100 year old Morgan et al has been historically dipped, so we're stuck with "correctly cleaning", as opposed to "harsh cleaning".

Ruben

 

Basically the answer to the OP is because you do not know how to do it correctly. Trust me, I was in your shoes when I started, and thought it would look better cleaned. I ruined some coins. Looking back I see why they are now ruined, and how I was wrong.

The gist of your post is correct, the difference is everything you mentioned was the WRONG way to clean a coin. If you research some conservation techniques, read up about it, ask questions here on the right way to do it, and practice for a decade or two on circulation coins, then yes, coin conservation is very possible.

DO NOT CLEAN COINS is basically written to stop new collectors from destroying coins, because they do not know how, why, or when to properly clean.

Chris

 

+1