1922 Peace Dollar - Cleaned Or Not?

Cleaned- the small marks indicate the direction which it was cleaned.

looks like they just rubbed in a circle, like you would expect.

To me it almost looked like it was cleaned with a buffing machine (same as you would clean jewelery). Ironically, the person I bought this from on ebay turned out to be a jewelery store owner. How much would the value of a coin go down because of it being cleaned?

You paid $6 over melt plus the $3 s/h.
Cleaning, and more specifically, this harsh type of cleaning, significantly lowers a coins value, sometimes as much as 75-80%. This coin is worth melt, that's about it.

Coin collecting is an ongoing knowledge experiment
We have all made purchases where we over payed by a little, or found out a coin has been cleaned, etc..
It's all good

Nothing wrong with ebay but yeah, when you are starting out, I really don't recommend it until you gain a little more experience and knowledge.
Coin shops are a good place to learn, and most coin shop owners will be more than happy to help you out with any questions you may have. Of course, there is the CCF too ;-)

LTMets44

we are glad you are here...We all are here to assist any one with any thing there are many skilled people here who have done just what you have over the many years and learned from our mistakes when something twinkles our eyes and buy it before we know if it was worthy of our efforts...
If you like coins, I do..one of the first most important thing a friend or mine FRANTICLY impressed upon me was LEARN TO GRADE..........one must understand low end coins are not so subject to monetary loss, you could have bought a DVD from the difference....When collecting for pleasure or profit,,one must know the grade you think others will accept..My meaning is when you get into Mint State coins the price difference , POINT SPREAD (depending on the year and Mint Mark) can be hundreds to thousands of dollars...
between grades can be serious money and this is where most of the dealers make there money...They by at a point down and sell at a point up...This usual business and fair
As someone has to pay for the building and such overhead for you to come in and make your $35 dollar purchase
once every 6 months...
A local shop requires honesty or they would go out of business. here you can ask questions and learn while you watch ebay as many sharks and MANY good people offer fair deals...without the knowledge you could be feeding the sharks, who sell coins from TPG's (see the TPG section on CCF) who over rate the coins true grade which you think is valued as its in plastic holder....SHOULD BE RIGHT? its from a grading company yes? yet there MS67 coins always sell for $100 or so? $3/2000 coins for 100 YEA!! why..its not there true grade or condition...
Learn to grade in any thing you want to collect..its not just coins...find help to learn....Right here its free.... there are people who collect Ancient coins to the present odd error coins and really know there stuff...
Glad to see you here and your questions...
By the way a 9 buck loss, these days is like going to burger king for lunch..so its not a loss a cheap lesson, but a momentous GAIN in what twinkles your eyes...
GAIN