1868 Seated Dollar PCGS PR-61....seriously?

While it does appear to be cleaned, it's likely been wiped many times while housed in a coin cabinet. Proofs from this era are commonly impaired and the 61 grade is what PCGS saw. The images might suggest something else but comparing PCGS to NNC is ridiculous.

I was kind of with you until I looked at the one I posted. You can see the remnants of the crud that was on that coin around the rim.

Maybe it's a typo? Should be BR-61? BR=Brillo pad, and the 61 was the number of scrubs it received!

I see the lines on the 1836 clearly extending onto the leg.

For those of you who have only discussed "cabinet rub" in an intellectual sense, now you know how much damage it can do to a coin. Cabinet rub isn't from dragging coins across the bottom of a drawer, it's from years of dusting cons laying flat.

What you're seeing here is what cabinet rub does to a Proof. Those lines are vanishingly small, and likely only visible from one or two lighting angles. Maybe PCGS didn't see them, maybe they decided cabinet rub was not a qualifier for a Details grade.

I disagree with that opinion, and would consider these Details coins, but it's not cleaning. These are poster children for cabinet rub.

That is NOT cabinet rub, that is deliberate cleaning probably done to remove tarnishing. That was not unusual in museums back then (including the Smithsonian.)

Both of those coins should be in details holders.

I disagree that either of these are deliberate cleaning (in the sense we usually infer for the term), although they actually are the result of deliberate cleaning (which is what we're actually talking about with "cabinet rub"). Clear? Good. Note that g048406's images are clickable, leading to Heritage Auction-quality images at Photobucket, so you can look closely indeed.

Here's why I think why I do:

First, I'd like to know why someone deliberately brushed the tarnish off the surface of the Seated dollar, yet left the denticles and rim alone. Answer? They didn't. The denticles and rims got brushed just as hard as the rest of the coin, which is to say, lightly dusted while in a cabinet. That won't mark the unfinished rims of a coin, but it'll sure as heck scratch the fine surface of a Proof. And why, then, leave the tarnish in the center of the shield completely alone? For that matter, look closer at the reverse. Those lines are, by and large, haphazard and relatively light. Is that the hallmark of a deliberate, all-at-once cleaning? I'm not thinking so.

And when you then subject the to the harsh lighting and resolution of digital macro photography, where a scratch raised by a camel's hair brush is deep enough for the sensor to see light reflected, the softest cleaning looks neon-lit.

So, the Gobrecht. Heavily-brushed (apparently) in the upper right quadrant, not so much anywhere else. Did they only want to remove the tarnish on the right side of the coin?

Am I wrong here? Maybe.

As an aside, is it easier to believe that PCGS has chosen to accept cabinet rub as "acceptable" on a 19th Century Proof, or that they missed two horrible cleanings on seriously high-dollar, important coins?