SHOULD COINS BE CLEANED AND/OR RETONED? by Michael E. Marotta On Fri, 25 Apr 1997 Scott Simon asked a hypothetical question, "The dealer has the coin labeled as VF, and is asking $125.00. You know that this coin could be cleaned and easily go for XF. Do you clean the coin, raising it to XF, with the possibility of later trading it up for a better (read un-cleaned) coin? Or do you leave it dirty, and consider it just a filler for your XF+ collection??" First and foremost, the question is stated in such a way that anyone who does not notice this fallacy needs to join the ANA and take their course in grading coins: YOU CANNOT IMPROVE THE GRADE OF A COIN BY CLEANING IT. Technical Grade (as opposed to toning and eye appeal) is not affected by cleaning. Technical Grade is the result of wear. The coin is an XF or VF based on the amount of detail remaining after circulation. What Scott is describing is an XF coin whose highest features are difficult to see because of its toning. Secondly, the question of cleaning a coin is another matter entirely. Few people clean coins expertly. Therefore, numismatists always tell people to NEVER clean a coin -- and that is good advice. However, as ANA president Ken Bressett recently pointed out, coins are "cleaned" as they circulate. Once they sit still, they start "toning." Therefore "cleaning" and "toning" are not always easy to define. Scrubbing a coin with baking soda will not improve it. Furthermore, once OLD TONING ("natural" toning) has been removed, anyone who collects with attention to detail will notice. Third, in the late 1800s and early 1900s, people were (rightfully) terrified of germs. They routinely washed their coins. Also, coins from the Barber/Morgan era circulated into the 1960s. Many was the person who found a Liberty Nickel in their pocket and who cleaned it to get a better look. That was 30 years ago and the coins have since retoned. While Cent Collectors have the luxury of "Full Red" most other type collectors do not. If you collect only Uncs or better, you can avoid cleaned coins. Anyone who buys "collector grades" must be patient or forgiving. Fourth, this question is -- as Scott notes -- of paramount interest to collectors of US Coins. I collect ancients. I am happy to find one with old cabinet toning. Of my 25 coins, I don't think I have two that were never cleaned. The question is whether they were _expertly_ cleaned or not. Cleaning and retoning is also important to collectors of Early American Copper. Large Cents and Half Cents -- especially when newly discovered -- are routinely cleaned and retoned to make them more attractive. With silver, the results are not the same as with _copper_. You can tell when copper has been cleaned and retoned, but the outcome is not so repulsive as it is when a Morgan Dollar has been washed with baking soda and baked in a potato. Therefore to answer the question by Scott Simon, my choice is to _not_ clean the coin, since I know how to grade it, having completed the ANA course in "Grading US Coins Today" with high honors. The technical grade is what it is. I'd be happy to find a XF misgraded as VF by a dealer who can't grade coins. Eye-appeal is another matter. Whether a coin should be cleaned and HOW it should be cleaned depend on the nature of the "dirt" or "toning." Whether a cleaned coin should be retoned "artificially" is yet another question. +------------------------------------------------------------+ | Michael E. Marotta Technical Writer | | ANA Member 162953 mercury@well.com | +------------------------------------------------------------+