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Originally Posted by Lee
It is a valid observation that you make and applies to many different areas of collecting antiques.
As you observe, a simple cleaning of a coin seriously damages its grade and thus value, while the Japanese sword community often seems intent upon slowly grinding their artifacts to dust.
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As a collector of Japanese swords I would point out that it is a bit more nuanced than that, though with a certain amount of truth. The old style care routine did regularly use an abrasive powder, "Uchiko" but dated back to when blood, fat, and bone fragments needed removing....Like a lot of traditions it carried on long after it made sense. Nowadays a sword in polish gets cleaned with isopropyl alcohol and a microfiber cloth, and then gets another oiling. If you are not a trained polisher, don't touch the blade. A proper polish runs at about £100 an inch........