Should I use a disc cleaner on Rare CD's?

Should I use a disc cleaner on Rare CDs?

Hello there, I hope this is in the right forum, it's a bit of a silly sounding question but I'm curious. I was just wondering if I should use a disc cleaner on a few rare CDs? (Spray liquid on the CD then put it in a little machine and turn the handle around to buff it out) I'm just wondering if someone could notice that it's had stuff on it and would lose value?

Thanks!

 

Well personally i would step away from the machine. I think if it did make a difference to buyers it would be a fairly small one. Specially if you can assure them that the item is in full working order. I would prefer to buy a used disc in full working order then one with scratches on it.

Another thing is you say "someone could notice" if you have done this to a disc you should be telling the buyer as i think its a limited amount of times this process can be done (anyone know how many?) and an unaware buyer might actually ruin a cd if he doesn't know its been previously done.

 

Some of those machines also seem to leave lines on the bottom. Not scratches, but just lines originating from the center point. Some people might look at it like cleaning a coin, (which is a bad idea), other's might look at like just cleaning up a vintage car.

 

(deleted), as realised he's talking about cleaning a dirty disc, not restoring a scratched disc.

 

It's playable, just a bit grubby. Just thought it would look better with the finger prints removed that the previous owner put on.

 

For that you could just a small cloth, like a lens cleaner.

 

Yeah, fingerprints = glasses cloth.
Actual junk = some sort of liquid non-solvent, even water does wonders.

(Well, technically water is a solvent... but you get what I mean)

 

Ahhhhhhh... sorry. I understand now. You're talking about cleaning discs, as opposed to restoring them. I therefore say go ahead.

Personally, I use a soft glasses cloth which gets rid of most fingerprints and probably avoid using a machine - if using a machine, I would possibly test it first to make sure it didn't scratch discs. The off-the-shelf disc cleaners are good for the more stubborn greasy marks, so I see no issue. Careful not to get it on the label-side - some products can strip print.

 

I'd say it's most important to reiterate that the cheap disc resurfacing machines like the Disc Doctor (do they still sell those?) are NOTHING compared to a professional automated machine that a shop might own.

Funny anecdote: The flea market I frequent has this one game "shop" that's run by this family of assholes and cheats. I've seen them putting huge lots of brand new BluRay movies into their cases. Like, a lot of them. Yeah, those totally aren't stolen... Anyway. Their prices are high, their service sucks.
One time, I noticed they had a little sign showing that they would resurface discs for a dollar (though they said something like "unscratch" or whatever, much much less eloquent HAH) and then the next week I saw their method, which was an electric drill mounted in a vice with a polishing muff thingy on the end. It looked like it technically worked and didn't obvioisly destroy discs... but the fact that they just held the disc there by hand and... yeah. I wonder how many burn marks they've left.

 

I would stay away from those things. I've had games that worked (like Suikoden II), but had some scratches that I tried to clean. Afterwards the disk wouldn't play at all in either my PS1 or PS2. Still could be read in my PC though.

Much more worth it to take it to a game shop to have it cleaned, but there's still some risk that this will render the disk unreadable. So if it's like a one of a kind rare disk like a beta, I think you should just leave it as is if it's still readable. If it's a beta or one of a kind disk, it's always better to try and make a backup before taking the risk.

 

Depends how rare it is I guess.

My Marvel vs Capcom 2 (PAL) was very grubby when I bought it, gave it some toothpaste and hot water and it's dandy now.