Pocket Pieces For The Purpose Of "Improvement:" OK Or Not?

No, of course you don't do any of that. No reasonable collector would.

If it's in your ability, by simply carrying that coin in your pocket for a while, to return it to a state where every_single_numismatist who looked at it, to include the most prominent experts, agreed that it was "market acceptable" (don't forget, cleaning used to be "market acceptable), do you do it?




More than a few. I've seen it discussed openly, by highly-respected members, in other fora although the coins in question are almost always Details candidates otherwise.

Because if it's in your ability to right a wrong, you do it.

SsDd - - excellent idea for a thread. I, too, have followed the threads that caused you to initiate this. This is very much like a religious discussion. You will have people on both sides with their own valid reasons for what they believe and no matter what the other side offers, they probably will not change their opinion.

Myself, I have always had pocket pieces. The reasons for each are varied. One of my current examples is an 1893 Columbian Half I plucked out of a junk bin @ melt. It looked terrible. After 14 months I am very happy with the improvement. I apologize to SsDd for the possible retinal damage he may suffer after viewing my out of focus after image. I basically want to show the difference in eye appeal.



Demarco - - you asked for before and after pics. My question to you is: If you were a buyer on a budget and the two coins above were side by side at the same price, which one would you take home?

Ohhhh I like the before on the Columbus, gorgeous look to it ! I may have soaked it in acetone for a bit but that's it.

@jeff

Both those coins look rather haggard so I cannot honestly say which I would choose.

My personal view on the matter is that once a coin is a part of my collection, regardless of the condition, it ought to suffer no further alteration. Everything from a proof sovereign to a beaten up old 1797 penny I aim to preserve so that in the years to come it will look no better and hopefully no worse than when it came into my possession. No alterations. The coin goes straight into a capsule or a 2x2 and that's it.

Edit:
We talk a lot on this website about being temporary custodians of coins that were here long before we were born and will probably be here long after we die. I think the problem is that a lot of people buy and sell coins regularly and so they are driven to doctoring their coins or trying to undo the damage that someone else did so as to increase the marketability of the coin.

I'm not into any of that. My coins were mostly inherited and I have no intention of parting with any of them.

I say it would be acceptable. You're not polishing, whizzing, or chemically cleaning anything. The type of wear the coin is receiving is the same wear it would have experienced in circulation.

Well, that's the point - it is unreasonable to expect. Pocketing a coin wears away, forever, any evidence that it was ever cleaned. And it does it at the exact same speed, the exact same way, that every circulated coin in history has worn.

IMO, it has nothing to do with value and everything to do with eye appeal. The only way to remove traces of a harsh cleaning is to wear the coin down by at least one grade so how would taking the grade from AU to EF increase the value of a coin? However, in the majority of cases, an EF with honest wear will have greater eye appeal than an AU covered with hairlines.

I politely disagree with you SsDd. I think an archaeologist with the right equipment could tell you whether the wear occurred 100 years ago or within the past year. But my main question is still "Are you going to tell the person you sell it to what you did?"