...it's like we're having two different conversations here. I never said that you should clean your chips or that cleaning chips is a good thing. Nor did I say that cleaned chips look natural or do not look natural. And I also didn't offer opinions on how to clean chips if you're going to do it.

I merely said that a cleaned chip will sell for more than a similar chip that is dirty, and then I offered one possible reason that might go towards explaining why lots of people in this hobby clean their chips while people in most other hobbies do not clean their collectibles.

I don't think you can argue with either of those statements... as much as you'd like to.