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Why not clean? Beyond the "cardinal rule"...
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<p>[QUOTE="Kentucky, post: 1423430, member: 33176"]Cleaning coins has been compared to many things from fixing up a classic car to women applying make-up. Points well taken include the fact that cleaning used to be prevalent in this hobby as is evidenced by many of the older "authorities" who advocated lots of cleaning methods. This rampant cleaning led many unscrupulous (spelling) dealers trying to mask coin defects. I remember when "whizzed" coins were common. This is a buffing procedure that could mask scratches, but left the coin unnaturally shiny with MANY small polishing marks. The current thought has moved over to the simple admonition to do nothing at all (kind of like the Hippocratic Oath which I have seen versions of that state "First - Do no harm") which is the safest behavior. Now with that being said, we move from the perjorative "cleaning" to the politically correct "conservation", the difference being in the perception that the former was to hide defects and fool someone and the later is to stabilize the coin in the condition that it is in. Intent does have something to do with it, but for example if you found a cannister of nickels in an abandon house where there had been a flood several years past and they were covered in silt and gross stuff and you washed them off with water only, would this be cleaning or conservation? A fine line I think often.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>
[QUOTE="Kentucky, post: 1423430, member: 33176"]Cleaning coins has been compared to many things from fixing up a classic car to women applying make-up. Points well taken include the fact that cleaning used to be prevalent in this hobby as is evidenced by many of the older "authorities" who advocated lots of cleaning methods. This rampant cleaning led many unscrupulous (spelling) dealers trying to mask coin defects. I remember when "whizzed" coins were common. This is a buffing procedure that could mask scratches, but left the coin unnaturally shiny with MANY small polishing marks. The current thought has moved over to the simple admonition to do nothing at all (kind of like the Hippocratic Oath which I have seen versions of that state "First - Do no harm") which is the safest behavior. Now with that being said, we move from the perjorative "cleaning" to the politically correct "conservation", the difference being in the perception that the former was to hide defects and fool someone and the later is to stabilize the coin in the condition that it is in. Intent does have something to do with it, but for example if you found a cannister of nickels in an abandon house where there had been a flood several years past and they were covered in silt and gross stuff and you washed them off with water only, would this be cleaning or conservation? A fine line I think often.[/QUOTE]
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Why not clean? Beyond the "cardinal rule"...
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