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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Gallienus, post: 2908544, member: 42034&quot;]I wasn&#039;t able to watch the video with sound but don&#039;t plan to.&nbsp; Many coins have been cleaned and if it&#039;s done properly it can benefit the coin.&nbsp; NGC I believe offers a conservation service which does essentially this and then slabs the coin.&nbsp; Many ancient coins have been cleaned or &quot;conserved&quot; I think the term is.</p><p><br /></p><p>There are certain types of cleaning which are a &quot;no no&quot; for modern coins. The topic is complex and it may take years to learn.&nbsp; I&#039;ve also avoided EBay as of the 3 coins I&#039;ve bought there every one I had to return. </p><p><br /></p><p>My practice is to call and get the seller&#039;s (or auctioneer&#039;s) opinion of the piece verbally.&nbsp; I&#039;d guess that by looking at a fixed picture there&#039;s no way to tell for sure.&nbsp; This is why Heritage has video of some of their more expensive coins showing how the light moves across the coin&#039;s surfaces as it&#039;s rotated.&nbsp; You can view these on-line for free and it&#039;d give you a better idea on grading.</p><p><br /></p><p>For lower value coins you could try local shows, however there you have to be careful.&nbsp; The last time I went to a show, they had 100 dealers, not a single decent gold piece of ANY country nor any coin that I could collect: other than scrap silver.</p><p><br /></p><p>There was one guy who had some sort of 1890 era 2.5D Lib in 61 priced at $900.&nbsp; A quick check showed that he bought the exact same coin out of a Heritage auction earlier that same year for $400.&nbsp; Not that I really looking for a quarter eagle in 61 but this was clearly not an honest offering.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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