For quite some time, I've wondered about the beautiful blue and green toning that occurs on silver coins. In my experience, anything silver that gets left around turns an ugly brown or black in color. This evening, my wife pulled out our silver-plated ice bucket and I was surprised to see this:
That's cool. You should see the underside of a pot lid we use for boiling water all the time. Wish I had more coins that look like it!
Looks MS67 to me but a harsh cleaning in the past. Net grade it at AU58 Toned. I also have to wonder about the amount of melted ice. ie water damage that may be hiding on the inside. : ) Thats pretty Kewl looking. Personally I would dip it.
If nothing else that will show you that just about any color is possible with totally natural toning. Of course now somebody will say it's AT.
The only problem I see here is if you invited me over for a Marini on the Rocks and took the ice out of that I think I'd go home.
Great minds think alike. I had it slabbed by NPS (Numismatic Party Supplies). It came back as MS69, but the harsh cleaning was evident. I'll be putting it up on ebay.
Man, what a beauty! Glad you got her in a slab right away! You think she might have a chance at a 70 though? I mean, with those cameo surfaces and reflective fields, just goes to show you not all grades are the same. Phoenix
Beware!! There is something very strange about this slab. It looks fake! I'm afraid you might have been taken. On a more tangible note...the toning we coin collectors love so much, myself especially, would be considered tarnish in this application and viewed as poor house keeping. Coin collector are really, really strange people. Yes and that include yours truly. Nice post, thanks for sharing. Allen
The entire hobby is built upon a number of shared rules that everyone agrees to abide by. Harsh cleaning destroys value. Small differences in appearance and wear result in huge differences in value. Accidental toning is beautiful. Intentional toning is destructive. Uncirculated coins are more desirable than circulated coins. And so on... It's all subjective and there is no guarantee that a generation of collectors 100 years from now will share the deeply held beliefs of today's collector. Maybe undipped coins will be considered junk. Maybe ultra-advanced DNA testing will enable science to determine if any historically famous people touched circulated coins, and a VF Jefferson nickel touched by John F Kennedy will be worth more than an uncirculated coin. Nobody knows what strange twists and turns are possible.
Oh wow...no. I didn't pay any attention. I've always wondered why people brought up these threads from 3 years ago....there's no point at all.