Ok, I was talking with one of my bosses yesterday and he said coins that are "artificially toned" are getting big money on ebay, and he also said that sellers admit,"I used such and such chemicals on the coin." So there IS a threat of AT coins being deemed "art"! Also, a tip I learned is the big graders are scared of Coppers that have toning because there are people good at faking them! Even ones that are impossible to be fake they won't grade....and THERE IS ways of telling between AT or Natural Toning.
Yeah, if the AT is completely amateurish. Other than that, nobody can tell one from the other. Though there are many who claim to be able to do so.
But how can you prove not being able to tell the difference? I mean both have characteristics of what Mother Nature did over some Coin Doc.
Both of what ? I'm a bit confused by that. But the reason no one can tell well done AT from NT is because they are both caused by exactly the same things. The chemical reactions are identical. The only difference there is between them is the amount of time it took for the toning to happen.
It gets back to definition of AT versus NT Vnickels. Doug has wrote about this, but if you put a coin in certain coin books, leave it for a few years, it will tone. Is that AT or NT? Does your intention in putting it in there change the toning? If people use chemicals applied to a coin, I think most toning collectors can recognize that. That is what Doug means by amateurish. If someone replicates toning the same way NT occurs, then how would one tell? Its a slippery slope, since toning is a slippery slope, the faster you try to AT tone coins, the more different they are from NT. Instant chemical application will most likely look different than NT. Oven baking with certain accelerants will look more natural, but maybe not quite. Put into an old holder for 5 years, then even more like NT. Its a continuum really, and hard to draw the line. It makes me really sad that you mention copper. Anyone turning red copper into a toned copper literally makes me sick, since it is so hard to keep one red. Unfortunately its the old rule of economics, higher prices create more supply, one way or another. Toned coin collectors will always have to fight this as long as they are willing to pay over book value for toning. I bought a TON of toned coins, but today if I want pretty silver toning I will buy old silver items like coffee sets, they are much larger and tone just as well as coins.
Doug is correct. From a few snippets in some of his post,I think he has a good knowledge of toning, both AT and NT. But most people are afraid to let their knowledge on this area be known due to the paranoia rants which probably could come from many. Very few master AT use any liquids or solid anymore. It is my suspicion that they use gaseous methods which can be controlled by devices similar to the medical computerized IV controller. Inert gases can be used to flush or dilute gases to provide slow even toning. Most likely these set ups could be multiplexed together to do many at one time. Anyone with chemical or controller experience could easily whip something up. When people can mint 1964-D peace dollars with seeming immunity from the numismatic community, why worry about AT, except of course it is a financial consideration. AIMHO, as I don't know for sure, and would not tell details if I knew.
