Beware of rainbow toning

No, I find it hideous and it should sell at a discount. With that said, Silver Towne often overprices materials and seems to have a customer base for it, so I am sure that they inflated the price significantly. The majority of toned coin collectors would not seek this coin out, at all.

Edited: Isn't this the same firm that sold the $100k Gold Kennedy? If so, I hope you are not trying to use their listings as price points for the toned coin market. This transaction alone should tell you that they have a sufficient number of idiots in their customer base to move dreck at inflated prices (in my opinion of course).

 

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From D.O.A. (1950)...

* Angelo. Angelo! Oh, Angelo. Do you remember taking this picture of George Reynolds?

** I take so many pictures I can’t remember them all.

* This gentleman is a friend of his who would like his address. We have no card on him.

** I don’t think we ought to do that.

* He’s willing to pay us $20 for it.

** That’s the paper we used last year...

* Of course you understand we usually don’t give out the information about our clients.

*** I know. You’re a couple of high-class fellas.

* Thank you. Revealing anything confidential is against the ethics of our establishment.

*** That’s right. Honesty is the best policy.

* Of course. But in your case inasmuch as you’re a personal friend of Mr. Reynolds...

*** Thanks. I knew you’d come through.

** Got it!

 

I think he wanted some sort of regulation of prices by collusion with dealers, TPGs, and the U.S. Mint. It's a horrible idea IMHO.

 

This WAS a completely open in-person auction with Internet bidding. BTW, this is precisely the type of toning I say is 1) tobacco spit, and 2) very easy to fake, even though this one is most likely original since it's in a GSA.

 

My point exactly

 

And somehow we are back to pricing toned coins which wasn't the subject of this thread. I have told you that I wouldn't pay some of the prices that pieces have realized recently despite the fact that I like toned coins and seek them out when the pieces are reasonably priced.

 

This says nothing about your point. And you absolutely cannot judge an entire market by a single coin, and especially one that is off the charts on the "ugliness scale."

 

Don't jump the gun, calm down. Unless you looked it up, you don't yet know the price.

 

To each his own I guess. I'm not a flashy tone type guy. I don't know why but that toning doesn't bother me, but I wouldn't pay a big premium for it. I can understand how some appreciate color enough to pay extra for it but the decision to pay extra should be based on an honest description from the seller as to whether it is natural or artificial. To sell otherwise is morally wrong if not illegal.
For my personal collection I had rather they all at least look like they were kin to eachother. I used to raise cows and prefered all of them to be the same color and went through great pains to see that they were. I would have been highly upset to have found out that I bought one that had been, for lack of a better term, painted.

 

Bovine racist . I'm only kidding...

 

I will tell you this. The coin above went more MORE THAN NumisMedia FMV retail for a 64, but UNDER the same source for a 65. It is a big step size.

 

The problem is that Numismedia is often high. So it might still have been full price for a 65 depending on the actual price realized.

 

Okay, NOT including the BP (13% I think) and shipping (blanket $5 today) it hammered for $390. Comments? The high bidder was a floor bidder, not Internet. (Lower BP)

 

Assuming that the coin truly has the surfaces, strike, and luster of a MS65 and is not an otherwise a higher graded coin that has been netgraded because of the toning, I would say that the price realized is full retail for a normal MS65. Two 1884-CC GSA NGC MS65 Morgans, problem free, recently sold for around $420-$430. If the coin is otherwise a true MS65, but has negative eye appeal, I would value the piece around the going price for a MS64.

 

You just judged a company and an individual over the same issues I have been addressing. So tell me why wouldn't you use their pricing? If you are a new collector and didnt know better why wouldnt you buy from such a huge dealer??? How would you feel if you did buy that coin then later found out no one would give you close to wait you paid? Sometimes its enough for someone never to buy again... expecially when you are dealing with an average person. So thank you for your attitude and proving my point as to why integrity needs to be brought back to coin collecting.

 

That's pretty much what I thought, too. It is a fairly recent NGC grade, judging from the precise stickering seen. I also just got an 84-CC done by NGC (fully white MS66PL), and the stickers are identical in style.

 

So the coin is an NGC graded GSA 1884-CC MS65 right?

Numismedia Wholesale: $440
Numismedia Retail: $550

In answer to your question, the coin is hideous and I wouldn't even let that coin be in my inventory, much less my collection.

1) It is tobacco spit toning, it is very unattractive, and this type of toning does not drive a premium in the marketplace
2) I don't care if it is easy to fake because this type of toning does not drive a premium in the marketplace.

The basic premise of this thread is that people should beware of rainbow toned coins because they sell for premiums and could be fake. You just gave us an example of a hideously toned coin that won't sell for a premium. I'm confused, what is your point with this example?

I would expect an MS65 to sell for MS65 money. Though you might find the toning ugly has hell and think the coin's grade should be penalized accordingly, there has already been one member who posted that they don't mind this toning. All it takes are two people and the coin will sell near the established price guide price.

So you are saying that the coin sold for $445 which represents Numismedia Wholesale. That doesn't surprise me since that is the low end of the pricing spectrum for the 1884-CC in MS65.

You gonna show us that coin?

 

Sorry, it was already under a conditional sale based on the grade received, and it was delivered last night. A dealer had INSISTED it was a 64 without the PL when it was raw. I asked him if he would pay me 90% of NumisMedia retail if it was more than a point higher, and said he would. He did, 21 hours ago. Its NGC number is 4201407-001. The pic is on their site. I dropped it off at NGC at the ANA Portland show.

And yes, before anyone asks, I DO VERY MUCH have an attitude problem about most coin dealers. I run into far more con men than otherwise, perhaps except for national show caliber dealers.

Oh, my "point" is that I fundamentally can't support a system where anything that hideous gets a 65; regardless of what else is going on. You say ugly doesn't pay a penalty! It needs to, a big one. I see more cases of true 64's being bumped UP TO 65's because of ugly toning like this. Not for all that long - but lately.

 

You see, Lehigh, my contention is that we either need a technical grading system, a market grading system, or two admittedly side by side grading systems, one for heavily toned pieces and one for everything else. What we CANNOT have, I submit to you, is a technical grading system for ugloids, and a market system for "attractive coins", whatever that means at any given point in history, that giveth (adds points) but taketh away (subtracts points) not. It simply makes no logical sense for at least two reasons. 1) rewarding toning PER SE is somewhere we REALLY don't want to be, because it establishes perverse incentives to "manufacture processes". 2) we have already discussed above that dipping USED TO BE okay, but increasingly isn't any more (among the converted). We all know, or should, that many of today's nicest old coppers were probably oiled or lacquered somewhere in their long histories, and cleaning itself as a whole category was once not the crime it is today. It's why pretty strong evidence of cleaning in really old pieces is tolerated.

Bottom line, Lehigh? I simply am not comfortable with the idea that matters of aesthetic tastes, that can, do, have and will continue to change over time get absorbed into something that goes around with the "vestments of immutability" that a coin's grade does, especially when we seal them in plastic. That is, of course, unless one's goal is forever needing to have everything regraded ad nauseum. If I were a TPG, or part of their "network of highly ethical professional dealers", I might like that idea a lot. As a "mere collector", not s'much.

 

I understand your point, but you can't phrase it that way. What you showed is a coin with MS65 surfaces, luster, and strike but with very poor eye appeal. That is not the same thing as an MS64 being bumped for ugly toning. It is an example of an MS65 not being penalized for unattractive toning. Those are not the same things, not even close. I'm pretty sure that I explained to you earlier in this thread that the TPGs don't penalize the grade of a coin for unattractive toning unless the toning impacts the luster of the coin. The toning can be reminiscent of used toilet paper but as long as the luster is not impacted, the toning will be treated as "neutral" with respect to grade.