About a year ago I started collecting
Morgan dollars. I only collect PCGS or NGC slabbed coins graded 65 or above. Most of my collection is CAC stickered. I'm also very partial to toned dollars with 9 of my 10 dollars exhibiting nice (IMO) toning. Lately I've begun to wonder why it appears (to me anyway) that certain dates are toned more often than others. Many nicely toned dollars seem to be readily available for the years 1885, 1886, 1887, as well as 1883-O, 1884-O, and 1885-O. Some dates almost never seem to exhibit toning. My suspicion is this: Dealer/collector submits dollar to
TPG for grading. They get back a nicely graded coin, but they're not going to be able to sell it for a decent profit because it's an ordinary date, so they introduce toning agent(s) knowing a nicely toned coin can fetch much more than an untoned date (I read somewhere that coins can be toned after they're in a slab, is this correct?). They don't do this with rarer dates because they risk a good profit should it not tone well. I also wonder why
Morgan dollars seem to be a series that is toned much more often than any other. Am I being overly suspicious? Perhaps there's another explanation for all of these situations?
Posted 01/10/2018 8:17 pm
