[tomb1]

1. Soap and water is my preferred method.

2. I also tried a little mineral oil one night, and I was surprised at the result. It actually brightened them more than I expected. It was quite nice--kinda like furniture polish does to wood. But I had to rub them quite hard to remove the slickness from the oil, and that took some (but not all) of the shine away.

3. The other thing is this -- many pictures of Chipcos are scans, with the bright scanner bulb shining straight up at the face. The colors are brightest this way. In actual use, we look at chips from an angle, and the slightly rough surface reflects light differently at an angle vs. a straight-on scan, so the chips are not quite as bright. This is more pronounced with NJs vs. Chipcos IMO.

4. The edges, on the other hand, are not textured. They are hard and smooth and the colors are much shinier. You would not want the faces to be this smooth or they would slip & slide too much.

Just my 2¢ worth of observations.