What Do You Consider Artificial Toning?

Dear KisNap,
In my opinion any toning is artificial when a chemical or
physical action has been applied.
Natural toning is the result of time and the environment.
Therefore leaving a coin in the sunlight for an extended period of time would be "natural."
Having said that, no amount of natural toning will magically turn a cleaned coin into a non-cleaned coin.
I once placed two Mercury dimes, 1916-d and a 1921, one AG and the other Good, into a manila coin envelope and put them on a window sill for over a year. Both had been cleaned with baking soda! The result was an overall improvement, but the coins were still cleaned.
The manila envelope contained sulfur which accelerates the toning/tarnishing process.
While "cheating," the effect was about the same as putting a dime on a window sill in Pennsylvania or West Virginia during the days of heavy coal burning.

Let's see what other people have to say.
Matthew

@Conder101 - No disrespect, but IMO both are naturally toned. Do I go around doing this? No. But there is no morality to toning (intent/ non-intent) - it's just a matter if detectable chemical accelerants were used.

For the record, nobody knows what the long term implications of dipped coins are... but every major numismatist and coin dealer has dipped coins and dips coins on a daily basis... from David Hall on down.

Some have suggested the alternative "market acceptable" and "not market acceptable" to describe toning. I think that's a bit tautological. "Market acceptable" is at least partly defined by what is considered "artificial". It's also much different for a buyer and a seller. "Can I get some sucker to buy this?" is one question, "How can I avoid being a sucker?" is a different one. The same applies to dipped and and cleaned coins, so people looking for blast white to avoid the whole toning the whole toning controversy don't get any help.

Maybe the question you want to answer is "did somebody do this in their kitchen in 20 minutes, or did this happen over the course of years because of how the coin was stored?" Distinguishing intent is impossible by itself. The best you can hope for is to distinguish method and duration, from which you can hope to infer intent. Was the coin put in a Wayte Raymond album decades ago by somebody looking to display, store and protect their collection? Or did some coin doctor in more recent years acquire some old album to pretty-up some white coins? There's no way to know.

Jbuck is right... I'll take it a step further. Do not assign a premium for anything- unless you really, really like it. The more you know about a series or coin before you purchase the less likely it will be that you get rooked. That being said, expert advice and opinion, when not used as a crutch, can be a valuable and helpful tool to second your opinion on the coin.