'Doctoring' a Challenge to Define

Interesting...

www.numismaster.com/ta/numis/Article.jsp...=525162&rid=13572344

This is a great topic to discuss. I will give a more thoughtful response a little later. But to add fuel to the fire, consider that the ingots and double eagles and other miscellaneous coins from the S.S. Central America shipwreck were seriously conservated and there has been little controversy over that.

Garryn, looking forward to your expanded input when time allows.

Garry, Seems like it depends on who is doing the doctoring for it to be legit. Just my opinion. They just call it conserving.

Loosechange

I am a relative novice at this, but I wonder if this quote from the end of the article is a bit limiting....

"Coin doctoring is the willful application of any substance to, or the removal of any material (except contaminants) from, the original surface of a coin with malicious intent to defraud."

Does coin doctoring occur only when there is "malicious intent to defraud?" Just a thought.

I saw that too. Cleanng a coin could be done on any motivation. Doctoring a coin infers an intent to deceive someone into believing the coin has natural surfaces; hiding a defect from a potential buyer.

But the article drifts from doctoring a coin to deceive and general cleaning.