Opinions About Toned Coin Wanted

Hello Group
My first post. New to community. Nice Coin.
I haven"t purchased my first toner yet. I would like to get into collecting some. The reason I follow and read certain treads on forums is to gain some smarts. I see that there is a few questions still out there on different toners. I also see that there are two coin worlds. There is a Coin World for coin collecting and a Coin World that you are going by these rules or else. I maybe new to collecting coins once again, but It has been in my family for over 40 years. Any collectible has a value as long as it has some one to buy it. So saying a AT has no premium is not a accurate statement. There are people including myself that are into coin art. I buy some coins because of the art work. Lets say a celebrity buys a coin. Does the price of the coin increase because of the owner?
The third party graders are grading a coin on their standards. Anyone that takes that standard and holds it as this is it, will always find an argument. We already see that internet sells are changing what value a coin is worth. A coin is worth what you can sell it for. There can only be guide lines. There can not be a set in stone equation for collectibles. IMO.
Sorry to rant, But I can never understand why people want to try to make rules when there are no rules. Unless they are not collectors and are investors, then that is another world.
Just my thoughts.
Big Ed

ed-

Welcome to ccf.

You're right, there are no hard and fast rules, there is nothing more than general consensus.

In 1972, tarnish (toning, whatever) was grounds for a cc dollar to get kicked from the $30 "uncirculated" coins to the $15 "mixed circ" pile.

People who got attractively toned coins busted them out of their "reject" holders post haste, and the unattractive ones got a jeweluster bath nearly as quickly.

Dealers everywhere would dip just about every toned coin, because the popular opinion was that coins with "blast white" surfaces were best. I remember a collector telling a dealer he liked a coin, and would buy it if it wasn't toned. Before the show was over, the dealer dipped the coin and sold it to a happy buyer.

Now the pendulum has swung the other way, and dealers are trying to figure out how to undip a coin, which is a lot like unfrying an egg.

Your best bet is to collect what you enjoy, without regard for what is today's "correct" way. Alternatively, you can try to second guess they way popular opinion will run.

For example, today people are spending ridiculous prices for ms68-70 coins. Maybe you should get 20-100 times as many ms64s for the same amount of money. Then when people wake up to the fact that there is no real difference between 68 and 70 except as numbers on a competitive set, you'll have a huge supply of very nice coins that are worth almost as much each as the "better" grades.

The trick is to think things through and have faith in your own thinking, instead of joining the sheep.

to the forum biged239, nice insightful post

How about home toning kits? Let's say someone deliberately sells high-sulphur envelopes and tissues, with instructions to package each coin and put it back for two years?

Isn't splitting hares fun? Fudd would be proud.

New we have a new problem.

With the circ vs unc problem, we don't know what happened since the moment the coin left the die/mint. All we can base the decision on is what we can observe, evidence of wear.

Apply this to the toned coin, and I think you can see the problem. If you don't know whether the toning was from decades of NT in an old sulphur-containing envelope, or from a shorter period in a deliberately dosed envelope, your definition won't work.

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This brings in another angle. I always though oxidation was a process where oxygen combined with metal, like rust Ferric/ous oxide, or aluminum oxide. I thought Jeweluster works because thiourea (sulphur) is more reactive than oxygen, thus combining with the tarnish and putting it into solution.

Yet BadThad says tarnish is silver sulfate/ide oxide, if I understand correctly.

yes, but unlikely whether their numismatic value will exceed bullion value.

Biokemist6, by the same logic, how do you know there were other chemicals on those coins?

I'll tell you this much, so long as you're inquiring. I got those coins SP'ed through a dealer and promotional offering he got through PCGS. It was an offer I couldn't refuse. When I sold the coins in the SP slabs at my grades, I guaranteed they'd slab, anywhere, at the regular submissions level, all the buyer had to do was crack them out of the slabs before re-submitting. That was over a year ago, and I hadn't heard back from the buyer. Had the coins not slabbed at the regular level, I'd have expected, at least, to have been held to my guarantee. In fact, I had even guaranteed refunding the slabbing fees upon the presentation of valid invoices. The buyer had an email from me on all that.

You're over my head on that one, and I sincerely hope you take that as a compliment. The fact remains, however, that scientific application of the term, notwithstanding, it's a market grading standard, as applied to coins. It's as much a grading standard as the standard of circulation wear we're accustomed to applying to judge circulated coins. The difference is, the latter is an objective standard, while the former is a completely arbitrary standard. As such, pure and simple, the former can mean anything, at any given moment, anybody wants it to mean.

PS: I'm not saying grading is objective--it's not, it's subjective. Neither am I saying grading standards are quantifiable--they're not. However, they're objective. As such, anybody can learn and apply them to arrive at his or her overall [subjective] grade.