O.K. folks--time to stir up the hornets nest!! I'm a small time collector who has been collecting for almost 50 years. I've been thru the clean(used to be very popular believe it or not!)--don't clean eras, and this seems (to some) to be a hot topic right now. I'll be the first to admit that unless someone has cleaned the coin with a brillo pad or it has been over buffed, most of the time I can't tell if its been cleaned or not. Ah-ha--that is unless you inspect it with a 10-40X magnifier! I don't know about you folks, but if the only way I might tell whether a coin has been cleaned or not is to examine it under a microscope, then I don't really care! If it looks nice to my tired old naked eyes, doesn't have excessive wear(another rant I'll get into later), and the price is right, well heck!--Its O.K. with me. Of course some say that I could avoid the problem completely if I buy slabbed coins. Nope--all the big three TPG's have been guilty of grading cleaned coins(and not noting it). Some have even graded fakes! Besides, If I have to buy a slabbed coin, the first thing I do when I get my hands on it is to bust it out of the slab and place it in my album. Well, that ought to raise the hackles on a few folks! Remember--Sticks and stones... What say you?