Depends on a lot of different factors such as grade, eye appeal, rare or common toning pattern and a host of other variables. If planning on buying toned wheat cents take a quick look through some of the threads around here and it wont be long before you start to understand which types of toning drives what premium.
Okay, what about rainbow toning on fairly good condition coins, maybe, say, vf-20 to ef-40? And no, I'm not planning on buying any at the moment. I was just curious. I usually don't purchase any cents that I can find in circulation
Exactly. With circulated cents, attractive toning might add a few bucks to a key or semi-key date coin. It would also matter if the coin is R, RB, or B. The overall eye appeal and rarity will make all the difference. So you just can't make the statement that toning will add value to a circulated cent. If I had to though, I would say most of the time it will not. -greg
Circulated cents do not generally tone rainbow naturally. If they are artificially toned (AT), they will have a decreased value. In fact, business strike Lincolns that are naturally rainbow toned are very rare.
The biggest culprit of toning on circulated copper is oil from fingers, especially from old Whitman albums where all the coins were pushed in.
