A guy at the flea market made me question everything I knew about patina

Last Saturday this old timer selling a tray of crusty bronzes told me 'cleaning them is just erasing history' while I was holding a $12 coin that looked like a green rock. He said the dirt and corrosion tell the story of where it's been, and honestly I've been staring at my finds from the park by the old Methodist church in Akron all week, wondering if I scrubbed away something important. Anyone else ever feel weird about cleaning a coin after hearing something like that?

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maxm632d ago

...and that's EXACTLY what my buddy Dave said when he found a 1919 wheatie that was basically a blackened blob. He was all proud of it, took it to a local coin guy, and the guy told him the same thing about "historical value." So Dave left it crusty for like two years. Then one day he dropped it on his kitchen floor, the crud chipped off, and underneath was a beautiful lustrous copper that graded damn near mint state. He still talks about how dumb he felt listening to that flea market wisdom. Point is, some dirt is just dirt, and some history is just a century of pocket lint and spilled soda. Don't let some old guy with a tray of junk talk you out of your own judgment.