Actually, Mike, I think it could be argued that it is a real slippery slope from cleaning to all-out chip restoration. I think everyone has a line in that continuum somewhere.

For some reason, I don't see removing a hotstamp as being the same as filling a drill hole. Yet, on one level, it is the exact same thing--removing a cancellation. It seems to affect the value that the collecting community might place on a particular speciman. But is that the proper criteria? Okay--maybe it is to most, but in me there is a real "hobbiest" that wants to scream NO. Here's why--what if you had the opportunity to own a Sands $5 arodie that had a little hotstamp cancellation removed from it? Wouldn't that still be special? Didn't it still come from the Sands? Wasn't it used at the Sands in its entirety in that exact form that you would be holding?

On the other hand, with filling a hole, I just know that there is some foreign matter in that chip. With removing the hotstamp, there is nothing foreign in there.

Keep talking, you might convince me, but it still feels just a touch different--and that touch still has me on the other side of a line.

Bryan