Hey guys, I found this coin on ebay as an auction and I just want second opinions on how genuine the toning is. I think it is genuine, but it is raw so I want to make sure that I am correct.
To the naked eye it looks genuine. It has genuine moon toning toward the right side but the hazy rainbow color looks a bit sketch. I have handled hundreds of toners but this one is questionable. There are doctored coins that have original bag toning but altered colors to make them more appealing. I would wait to bid on it to see if any other people bid on it. Heres one that had original bag toning at first but was altered to make it look better:
Looks good to me. @Lehigh96 is pretty good with these and the color progression on them. Little surprising that its not already graded. Looks like a nice eye appealing 64 to me. The cheek seems pretty darn smooth and it has minimal bag marks.
There is also something else that is a bit sus and that is that the seller has about 15 other listings with the same date 1890 P Morgan all with similar rainbow toning colors. Unless this guy really loves 1890 toned Morgans, then another thing that could explain that is that he got a roll of BU 1890 Morgans and then gassed them all... But I mean as long as it looks genuine and real, then I'll probably buy it.
I mean, you are the buyer so if it seems ok to you go ahead and bid on it. I would do the same thing.
Can you post a picture of one of the other 1890s? The only other thing I can think of is that they are using a stock photo and the coin you receive is not the coin that is pictured. There have been a few warnings of Ebay sellers using these tactics.
I didn't mean the same coin but I meant it's the same date. They're all 1890 P and they all have toning with the same array of colors and I just think that he has to be very lucky to be able to find 10+ 1890 P Morgans with similar toning. Here's another one of them with two sided toning:
Looks good to me. As a longtime Morgan man, and a collector of toned Morgans, yours looks riteous. I would grade it as 64, and if NGC, possibly a * for color.
All of them are nearing terminal. Literally every single one. The only one I saw in a slab was very questionable. His moderns that are toned look doctored.
I think this Morgan is ok, though. This one is a pretty standard rainbow toning from being pressed into an album. The moderns are all “shake and bake” though. He does definitely doctor his moderns.
You don't suppose he's just hit on a successful formula for generating market-acceptable toning on Morgans? That inventory seems pretty damning.
The coin in the OP looks good. You have correct color progression, pull away toning around the stars, and good elevation chromatics. The colors are a little strange but that could be from the photography. Before giving my approval of the coin, I would need to see the reverse to ensure both proper toning correspondence as well as an evaluation of any reverse toning. The problem is that if the seller has an inventory of AT coins and has several rainbow toned 1890 Morgans with bag toning that supposedly occurred in a roll, I’d be deeply concerned and would pass.
I was going to say the same thing .. this is more of a bag tone than a roll tone. Maybe a roll of AT morgans I would say …
If his moderns are doctored, his morgans are suspect. Not enough evidence to prove they're AT, but enough to make me pass on them.
And I know I'm not the first person to say it, but... If the only thing that makes people suspicious of the toning on this coin is knowing who's selling it this time, and what else he sells... ...what does that mean for the concept that only "natural toning" is "market acceptable"?