I found this seller, morgandealer, who had a bunch of beautiful ungraded rainbow Morgans. The colors were incredible, and I could not believe he had so many. They I started reading its a huge problem from people that artifically tone the coins. So I cancelled my buys & bids, and about 6 coins arrived. The difference is stunning. What he shows are beautiful reds, blues, and greens. What I got looked like a sliced poop coin. While he does admit to cleaning his Morgans, the others are all brilliant with lots of luster, he does not say he manually tones them. He takes the photo in photoshop and saturates the colors to the maximum. Attached is one of the auctions, and 1 of what I got. I complained to ebay to intervene, and I filed a complaint. He guarantees them for 30 days, so I told him I'll send these back and you can refund. He only refunds 1/2 the amount, so I file complaints with eBay, PayPal, and American Express, which is the best card for fraud protection. I got all the money back and learned a valuable lesson. Buyer beware!!!
One good thing is he is now showing a more realistic photo for his rainbows & all his other Morgans are beautifully cleaned & shiny...
I had some doubts on some as he had a lot of the possible fake New Orleans late 1800 years... Either way, avoid this guy!
There are numerous ways to create artificial toning, AT. Don't buy from this guy again and hopefully you learned from this experience.
Don’t take this the wrong way, but much of this is on you. The coin you posted is one of the most egregious examples of both artificial toning and photo juicing that I have ever seen. The only person fooled by this would be someone who had almost no knowledge of rainbow toning, specifically natural vs artificial toning.
Yikes! That seller has over 42K coin sales! Buying raw coins these days is a serious crapshoot and brings more worries and headaches than its worth. Even the most experienced in the hobby will have a story or two of being well duped! My father used to say that's the expense of stupidity! Ebay is saturated with unscrupulous coin sellers which proves what PT Barnum said "There's one born every minute". There are still bargains on ebay but try and stick with known reputable dealers, unfortunately they are now the exception and not the rule. Thanks for posting Chris!
If you like toned coins look at as many as possible that are already in TPG slabs. While there are some strong opinions as to what constitutes Natural Toning, Artifical Toning, and Accelerated Toning, coins in TPG slabs are generally considered to be “Market Acceptable”. Since the prices for toned coins have skyrocketed in the last few years, some people with a knowledge of chemistry and metallurgy have tried to capitalize be “helping” the process. And a few are quite good. The more coins you look at, the better you’ll be at spotting the “better living through chemistry” fakes. Here is a good sites that explains the color sequence on NT coins http://www.1881o.com/assets/sunnywood-toning-classification-system2.pdf
Thanks for that, and one thing I have learned on real ones is the other side should have little to no toning. They do look very beautiful! I do have a question. I have some coins that have been in plastic that either had a pin hold and turned black around the hole, or the flip exposed an entire edge side to toning. Is there anything that can be done about that?
There are different types of toning and each has its own characteristics. Morgan Dollars are typically bag toned, which is often limited to one side but that doesn’t mean a bag toner can’t have toning on both sides. The coin shown below is a bag toned Morgan Dollar from the famous “Battle Creek Collection.” What is important here is the toning correspondence, meaning the toning on the obverse and reverse should emanate from the same source. So if the most toned part of the obverse is at 4:30, then the reverse should be at 1:30 assuming no die rotation exists. As you can see, this coin has the correct toning correspondence. That said, not all Morgan Dollars are bag toned. If the toning was caused by storage in a coin album, you would expect to see what is called target toning where the rainbow toning progresses from the peripheries where the toning source is to untoned centers, and the toning would be on both sides. If the coin was toned in an envelope, you will often find monochromatic toning that blankets both sides.
