Lets face it, half of the raw coins on eBay have been cleaned. Of these coins, I'd say about 30% have the cleaning disclosed in the description.

My question is this. If a seller is at least honest enough to disclose that a coin has been cleaned, why do they almost always have some sort of caveat like:

"Cleaned long ago"

"Cleaned some time in the past"

"Old cleaning"

"Lightly cleaned"

If its cleaned, why can't they just say.... "Coin has been cleaned" and describe the damage i.e. hairlines, buffing, dipped, etc. It seems everyone wants to sugar coat. All this does is set up the buyer and seller for a bad transaction.

My all time favorite is "may have been cleaned." Who would say this unless the coin was in fact cleaned?

/End of rant

Well, I, for one, have a very hard time spotting a light cleaning that has been done over 50 years ago, especially if the coin has retoned since the alleged cleaning. In those circumstances, I would say "may have been cleaned" because, honestly, I can't say with certainty that it has, in fact, been cleaned.

Now, it's a completely different story if the cleaning is obvious (hairlines readily seen with the naked eye) and that is what I call harshly cleaned. A lot of old silver was cleaned at some point in its life because a lot of old collectors (probably as late as in the 1940's) thought nothing of cleaning (polishing) thier coins. A lot of European collectors still do, from what I've witnessed.

But, more to your point, I really don't expect a used car dealer to tell me about the fender bender the car had 5 years ago, either. If the thought of getting a cleaned coin is a major issue, I'd suggest buying slabbed coins only, and then only from the "better" TPG's like NGC, PCGS, ANACS or ICCS. There may be others as well.

Just my two cents

I don't mind tye qualifiers on the cleaning as long as the listing as a whole is accurate. If you say lightly cleaned and provide an image that is a reasonable facsimilie of what the coin will look like in person then I'll be satisfied.

I do hate the people who waste my time with phony descriptions and images.

Of course, then you have the fact that at least 75 to 80% of 18th and 19th century U.S. silver (other than Morgans) curently in slabs even from the "better" TPGs has been at least lightly cleaned also. The problem is that other than ANACS none of them bother to mention it. They may net grade the coin (again without saying so) or they ignore the cleaning totally.

Collecting 17th century English tokens, I have seen more than a few on eBay that were very harshly and very recently clobbered at by some idiot with a scouring pad. It is a shame to ruin a 350+ year old coin because you can't bother to find a non destructive way to removed the dirt from it.

Well, for my 2 cents worth; I don't mind cleaned coins when I'm not buying to resell. I've also noticed that I can buy all the coins I want or need without clicking on the link to ebay. Buying coins on ebay is like asking to be BS'ed and ripped off.

Same here. If there is even a remote chance I will sell the coin in the near future, uncleaned is what I'll buy. Other than that, I welcomed a lightly cleaned coin due to the price difference. Half the time I can't even tell it has been cleaned but the dealer suspects it has been.

Today I was walking thru the flea market and saw a common date, cleaned. But the seller was easy on selling it and I picked it up cheap. (1901 o vam 40) Close to regular silver prices so I can't complain. I agree with the why sugar coat it. He did not have a problem dropping the price, he wanted the sale.