1888 Indian Cent - Opinions?

1. For the price being asked I personally would NOT even consider it unless it were slabbed.

2. Looks AT to me.

get one already slabbed.

They have obviously cranked up the vibrance and color saturation on these. There's a chance of it looking more natural in hand, but I wouldn't take that chance.

In the case of this coin I would say it's on the border line of being AT to NT . Usually an AT coin has a botched crazy rich color to it while your coin displays a lot of a smooth tight blend of a couple of colors . That being said I'm still up in the air on the calling of this coin . As far as strike goes ,It's right up there .

I wondered if maybe they just didn't want to spend the money for grading and shipping at that price. I suppose if they had a big bunch to send in it wouldn't be that much of a hit, depending on what they paid for it.

AT, and in my humble opinion, that is the reason it's not graded. Or as Zurie said, cracked out of a slab. There has been a huge increase in demand for rainbow or colorfully toned coins. Very few occur naturally and that takes years, if not decades. People are willing to pay what I consider ridiculous prices for colorful coins. Creating a golden opportunity for scam artist to make a buck. Or a couple hundred bucks.

Eventually this fad will die down. In part because people will realize 90% of what you see on ebay is AT. The scammers are getting better. Making it harder and harder to tell the difference. Even for TPGs. I think, when people realize that, the bottom will drop out of the RT market, even for the NT ones.

I am not really a fan of color toning in the first place, but why would anyone buy a COPPER CENT with this kind of blue color?
Personally, I feel the (un)circulated cents should be red, or perhaps red-brown. But blue?
Might as well order a knockoff from China in the blue color you like best and pay $0.99 including shipping.

I'll tell you why I initially chose to collect nice-looking toners. When I first started collecting I quickly realized that there was no way I was going to be able to complete most coin albums with nice-looking coins because most denominations had at least one key date coin that was way out of my price range—in some cases even at almost unrecognizable condition. And call me a silly nit picker, but I really don't like looking at albums filled almost entirely with lovely, shiny red pennies, with two holes filled with dull, brown pennies that cost the owner considerably $1,500 or more. I see people on here that are absolutely thrilled with those kinds of coins, and wish I could be happy to spend that much money on something so....blah, but I can't.

Toners, on the other hand, have great eye appeal, are absolutely unique from any other coins, and back in those days could usually be bought at just over market value for the type. I watched auctions and saw that the really attractive toners were getting a pretty hefty premium, and decided that where I could buy a nice toner at or near market value, it was likely I'd be able to sell it if I had to for at least what I paid for it, and probably quite a bit more. Sure, like everybody here, I am buying coins mostly for my own enjoyment, but it's an expensive hobby and I want the security of knowing that I can convert my collection to cash at least close to what I laid out for it. I've been on a learning curve and I've bought a few AT'd coins along the way, but I've been pretty cautious and I'm happy with most of my buys.

You'd think that once the schemers started flooding the markets with AT'd coins, the premium on toning would vanish but it has increased vastly. You can still find the occasional good deal but as above, these days unless you're an absolute expert on toning, you're better off buying graded toners. And the graded ones are getting more and more expensive. I'm watching a couple on ebay right now that are likely to go at 4-5X market value, and I'm keeping an eye on a couple wishful thinkers who are asking 10X or more.

Interestingly, attractively toned key date coins are still staying pretty close to market value. I'm watching one on ebay right now, the auction closes later today, and I'm guessing they're going to get pretty close to gray sheet value. I'd think in those cases the premium on toning might be a little stronger because someone would have to be insane to risk destroying the coin's value by artificial toning. Maybe most toner lovers are like me and we aren't the market for key date coins anyway, and those in the market for key dates don't care that much about toning.

Anyway, that's my take on it. I absolutely love a beautiful blast white Barber dime proof, but I'll never be able to afford one. But I can enjoy the eye candy in my own collection and unless you're right and the market absolutely crashes on toners (Or absolutely crashes, period), I can also feel pretty confident that if I ever absolutely had to, I can get back most if not all of the money I put into it.