Why did NGC bag the coin as AT?

Sorry I must have missed it.

Yes there is some scuffing to the metal in those 2 parallel marks.

 

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Just throwing this out there, but how does anyone know what percentage of "album toning" that is "good" is really from old albums? You state that either every AT must be so good as to fool everyone, or there are almost no good AT out there. You are making the assumption that coins you call NT are all natural, and you can easily tell the crappy AT coins, (which I agree with you Lehigh you are good at). But, how do we know that half of all of the coins we THINK is NT is, in fact, not from a ATer? You state by your reasoning that we are sure, but we are not. I do not see any logic that proves one way or another what percentage of "good" toning is in fact the result of decades of storage in a bag or album. I have seen tons of "good" toning, a lot of it from original albums and bags, but quite a bit from "other sources". I could not tell the difference, unless the coin was first dipped, or damaged in some way.

Maybe its just too late in the day for me to follow the logic, I am not trying to start another war over it.

 

I haven't run across any coin that are heavily toned. So is toning only a surface covering and not a metal that has been
attacked and permanently colored--er--discolored?

 

FWIW, you don't see the logic because you don't want to. Your anti toning stance is well documented on this forum. And you are welcome to form any opinion that you want, but to allude that 50% of all slabbed toned coins are AT simply because nobody can prove they are NT is tantamount to propaganda IMO.

I have made the claim that the number of coin doctors who can consistently fool the TPG's with their work is a very small and elite club. I have asked the members of this forum to speak out if they know a coin doctor who claims to have this skill level. Only Leadfoot responded. So you have seen tons of "good" toning from bags or albums but have also seen quite a bit from "other sources." What is that supposed to mean? What are "other sources"? Please don't speak in tongues!

The fact is that the large majority of AT coins in the world are easily identifiable as such. Only an elite few are able to replicate what is considered natural toning. The remainder of the AT creations will fall somewhere on the toning scale.

Think of toning as a scale with AT at one end and NT at the other. In between, you will find various degrees of toning progressing from questionable to widely acceptable toning. The better the quality of the AT, the further to the right of the scale the coin will land. However, I firmly believe that the further right you go, the number of AT coins extant gets progressively smaller. To demonstrate my point I have created a scale using photos of album toned Jefferson Nickels from my collection.







The problem is that in the middle of the scale, both NT and AT coins will show the exact same toning patterns and color schemes. Based on recent reports, both TPG's have already become more conservative in their evaluation of toning. The coin I have shown as borderline QT/MA would probably fall into the questionably toned category if cracked out and re-submitted.

Instead of explaining the subtle differences in the examples I have shown, I think it would be more educational if the readers of this thread engage and discuss the differences as they see them.

 

Doug,

I don't believe there is a hill of beans worth of difference between the two. To me, BOTH are simply toned, chemically altered coins; I don't care how it was done. If someone wants to place some ridiculous value over speculation as to how it was done, then be my guest. I think this house of cards is bound to come tumbling down sometime soon though. If I take a cent fresh from the mint and roughly toss it around in a bag of other cents and pull it in and out of my pocket and rub it against various things and try and put some contact marks on it, would you call it artificially circulated? No, it's simply circulated, and all toned coins are simply toned.

 

I like your reasoning JallenGomez and what you wrote in the thread!

 

You are THE MAN! This post should be a sticky!

 

I would call that Morgan "Shake and Bake"

 

Dwhiz, Ha ha ha, very funny. You cracked me up!

 

Leigh96; Thanks for the very informative and enlightening thread message. Your toning chart is just spectacular!

Very truly yours,

Brenton

 

Thanks for sharing this one

I agree the toning chart show& tells 99.9% of toning color types.but there still a very few coins that will tone and look to be AT but really are NT but there very rare.

 

One doesn't need to KNOW in order to apply the concept of market acceptability. However, you even stated that obvious AT coins are easy to identify. At the opposite end of the spectrum, there are toning patterns that are genuine and can be considered natural since they are so difficult to replicate. All of the labels in between are a subjective evaluation of the toning using the concept of market acceptability. You DON'T need to KNOW that the coin is AT or NT, you just need to evaluate the toning using the same standards as the TPG's.

Now if you are asking how I know what the TPG's will say about the coins, my answer is experience. I have viewed thousands of toned coins in hand over the last decade. Free your mind Doug, and you will find that your theory and my theory exist together in perfect harmony. You are 100% right that nobody can ever prove the originality of toning on a coin. The TPG's know this and have created the system of "market acceptability" in order to effectively deal with the AT problem.

 

There is always the possibility that the TPG's have changed their standards. And please keep in mind Doug that this shift does not necessitate an overall shift but could be constrained to this particular toning pattern/color scheme. In other words they think this coin is the work of a particular coin doctor. Also, the TPG could have simply made a mistake. The other issue is that we have only seen Matt's photo. The coin could look very different in hand. You know as well as I do that sometimes a QT coin has a "look" that is very difficult to describe in words and often elusive in photographs, but the "look" is very real. For example, let's look at the coin I listed as questionable toning on the scale.



After viewing the photo, you can make an argument that this coin should belong in the Borderline or even the market acceptable category. But once you view the coin in hand, there is no doubt that the iridescent oil slick toning is questionable and the coin has no business residing in a TPG slab. Furthermore, this coin very well could be naturally toned. But if it is, it is the result of improper storage and deserves to be treated as a problem coin IMO.

 

Anything subjective, including grading itself, is "guessing". NT/AT/MA is no different, nor should it be, IMO.

 

And that original sealed mint packed mint or proof set could have been improperly stored to achieve the toning. In that case, they are problem coins just the same as an AT coin and deserved to get bagged

That is correct. Judging toning is a game of incomplete information. It is much like poker in that regard. When viewing a toned coin, you analyze the toning and the indicators that you see in order to render your judgment. There are coins that are 50 to 1 to be naturally toned and there are also coins where the odds are 6 to 5 or even money. But just like in poker, every once in a while that 50 to 1 shot will show up and be your proverbial two outer. I don't want people reading this to think that 1 of every 50 coins that are considered NT are actually the product of a coin doctor. The odds used here are poker odds along with the analogy to prove a point. The point is that the odds of finding an NT (on the scale) coin from a coin doctor or improper storage are far less than finding one in the Borderline QT/MA category where it really is a 50/50 guess about the originality of the toning. So maybe you are uncomfortable making an educated guess. You think that if you can't say definitevely 100% that the coin is AT or NT, then there is no reason to even try. And while you have your right to that opinion, all it really does is place you outside what is accepted by the numismatic community.

They can't produce a written standard because they know that it is a moving target. The game of incomplete information will always change once new information is introduced. Everyone is entitled to their own standard, and personally, I think that is the standard that is really important. If I am uncomfortable with the originality of the toning on a coin, I will not buy it regardless if it resides in a TPG slab. Having said that, it is the TPG standard that affects the prices of these coins and an understanding of their criteria is essential with regards to financial prudence.

You mean like when any given coin is examined by a group of people, including the graders, you get varying opinions of if the coin is MS64 or MS65. And that is also why the very same coin is MS64 on time and MS65 the next time.

I finally figured you out Doug. It is not the TPG's and their practices that you hate, it is subjectivity. You live in a world where everything is black & white, right or wrong, good or bad. It explains why we disagree about almost every topic that includes a TPG opinion which will always be inherently subjective.