Flintstone said:
DO NOT CLEAN, They will be worthless if you clean
I agree with coin-hunter2 on this.
The old addage of "never clean your coins or they become worthless" is no doubt born out of horror stories of someone cleaning their gold coins with ajax or sandpaper, etc... In those cases, sure, if incorrectly clean, they will loose value. But when CORRECTLY cleaned, they will add value. Assuming you do so in such a way as to leave no trace (abrasion, etc...) of your effort.
There was a true story Flinstone, of a guy on the east coast, who over the years, had found a bunch of large cents there. He studied the coin-price books on the valuation, and determined that a few of them (based on detail features he could see on the feathers, wreaths, etc...) that should be worth such & such amount. So he took them into a buy/sell/trade coin store (this was before the era of the internet). He puts the coins out on the counter, and says "what will you offer me for these coins?"
The coin store proprietor looks at each one through his magnifying loop, and flips through his coin-guide books. And one by one, offers the guy a pittance. The md'r objected and said that , according the book, they should be worth considerably more than that. But the coin-store guy said "but your coins are cruddy and dirty". So the md'r says "ok, then if I clean them, THEN will you offer more?"
The coin-store buy BRISTLED and said : "If you clean them, then FOR SURE we will never buy them from you. NEVER NEVER clean coins".
So the md'r left the coin store, dejected and depressed that the coins he thought were valuable, were in fact worth very little
When he got home, he decided that , since they're not worth much anyways, he'll just clean them for display in his own home shadow box display trays. So he researched all the different methods of cleaning copper coins, to decide which would leave the least trace. He practiced with various methods on lesser valued LC's and IH's. He eventually settled on one method (I forget which method). He cleaned them, and then placed them in his displays.
A year or so later, he decided to take them back to the SAME coin store. When he walked in, he recognized that the clerk was the same one who had waited on him a year earlier. But the clerk didn't recognize him. The md'r did not remind him of the earlier meeting. He just laid out the same coins on the counter, and repeated the same line: "How much would you offer me for these?".
The coin store guy studies each one, flips through his guide books, and then, one by one, offers the guy considerably more than he had the year before ! True story!
So the moral of the story is: It's not always true that cleaning devalues, ruins, etc.... It's HOW you do it. Because, let's face it guys, some of the stuff we find md'ing has nothing to loose, and only to gain..
