Coin Toning Problem Or Attractive?

If you like it - that is all that counts.

I prefer coins with some character NOT the sterile never been circulated types.

One subset of my collection are damaged and cancelled coins. They are an interesting group. I also have a single row box full of "Road Money" coins I have picked up during my daily walks. (I do not keep all the pennies too many - but I do keep most of the oddities. I once found a Spanish Peseta in a gutter in Massachusetts.

Sap I know that the market treats edge knocks as you suggest - but I have always felt that the issue is contrived - artificial like cleaning or the whole 70 point grading scale for coins. A way of artificially "creating" rarities from common coins.

Who really cares? Investors who don't belong collecting coins? People who love coins for what they are not only the "value" see things differently. I have never liked MS coins and proofs even more so. Don't really know why just a personal preference.

But I am a bit frustrated based on what I saw at the ANA show in terms of outlandish prices being asked AND PAID for coins that are really COMMON. The prices are generated by contrived rarity. Just because one is an MS-70 and the next is an AU-50 with edge knocks - is the true worth altered or is it an investment bubble? The actual rarity as a coin is IDENTICAL based on mintage but the value difference is astronomical because of preservation state?

That was what I was driving at when I said I prefer marked up coins that show they were used as coins - not the sterile metal discs that no human being has ever touched. This pertains even more so to Proof only collector issues and the balance of the junk driving the big BUBBLE.

It has got to break and that will be bad.

I personally don't like that toning much... particularly around the date. I have a couple like that myself and I don't like the mottled grainy kind of toning they have picked up...and I am not sure why that has happened on a couple of coins yet other ones similarly stored have become uniformally brown. It is preferable though to a cleaned coin though so I don't suggest you do anything about it... maybe you could leave it on your window sill to tone up brown at most but don't try leaving it in a sandblaster or cyanide dip.

I also agree about the ultra high graded items... I see no value in them. PArticualrly bank notes... would I prefer to have 1 x PPQ Gem Uncirculated or 10 x EF notes? I'll take the selection of 10 please!

With coins it is nice to have coins with good details, some toning can be attractive, some I don't like but I don't expect a circulated coin to be spotless and completely free of edge knocks.