Colorized ASE

Yep. I've done the same thing. Most of them are beyond tasteless, IMO, and I generally don't mind colored coins. But, like yours, I've been able to find them for well under spot and figured, regardless of packaging, it's still an ASE underneath all that ugly.

Foolsgold,

Here's an example of one of the more heinous ones in my collection. As you can see, the cheap paint or decal or whatever the coloring is started pealing off when I took it out of its original case and put it in an Airtite. Ronnie would have been mortified to see what someone did to his likeness. Yours is a masterpiece of form and function compared to mine.

Cw,

You read my mind. My Reagan ASE is flaking badly and I always wondered how hard it would be to expedite the process.

Does anyone remember the commercials they used to play seemingly nonstop around the turn of the century for these "beauties"?

I know there are different methods for colorizing coins but I just now found this article discussing one type of colorization process:

"The process is interesting. The artist uses tiny paintbrushes to first outline the image on a coin. Then the coin is fired at high temperatures (and subsequently after every coat of paint is applied). Each paint color is mixed by hand as the artist paints, so no two coins are ever alike. After the image is completely and carefully painted, the artist applies a coat of protective plastic and bakes the coin to ensure the painting lasts for years. The entire painting process can take up to two days to complete! Imagine painting a coin for two days!" - PCHtips web site.

This method sounds fairly durable which is bad news for cleaning and restoration purposes.

Here's a couple more uglicized ASE's:

I got one last year as a novelty. The design is like the first one traevin posted.