Let's talk about toning.

not sure the grade, but i like it

 

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I thought that was to polish them..

 

This thread was very informative thank you all. Learned a lot. Great post GDJMSP.

 

IMO, there are too many constructs and contradictions
with eye-appeal. Does this make sense: A silver medal
treated with liver of sulfur, by a private mint, to darken
it, will be accepted as "antiqued" even though the
antiquing is fake. But a coin that has darkened naturally
is some how "ugly."

 

steiner are you still here?

 

Wow that never occurred to me but its true.

 

Maybe its because original black toning hardly ever looks good, this is the only example which I have encountered which looks good and its not even silver.

 

That's exactly right. In fact jewelers have been using liver of sulfur for years to tarnish jewelry. FWIW, my wife collects jewelry, so I know. That's to say, I buy it, she collects it.

 

This is how I see it.

For centuries, silver was polished. It was always kept polished. No one wanted to see dull silver, much less eat with it.

People adored the bright and shiny properties of well polished silver.

However, and again, it's my opinion, any old coin that has tarnished like that, is ugly.

Depending on the conditions silver coins are stored in, they can stay blast-white for many years, or produce an awesome rainbow tones.

However, I don't like old silver coins that are dull grey.

Here is a draped bust with nice toning.


Now here is one that's....dull.




Now...if you had the cash, and both of these were the same price? Wouldn't you pic the top one? I would. As a matter of fact, both were graded the same, and the bottom one realized $200 more.

 

I prefer the bottom one myself, but that's just my preference. If that die crack is a more rare attribution, that could be why it sold for more.

 

I have a Un Sol of Peru with toning similar
to the bottom coin. It's has 17 die cracks.
I bought it aroud 1999 for spot silver and I don't
think I would sell it even if there was someone
who wanted to buy it.

The bottom coin does look like a higher grade. Look at
the hair behind the forehead.

 

If toning is so great, why is this car not worth more money? It has some "great toning" right?

 

Looks salvaged to me and with a severe rim ding at 12 O'clock.

 

Hellooo steiner..

 

OK, I hate to tell this to a mainly "masculine" audience, but it is a verified scientific fact and is genetic. I refer you to Discovery magazine , Jul-Aug, 2012.

The traditional view of color vision ( I taught it in college for many years) is that humans have 3 types of cells that distinguish color ( cones). It has been known that deficiencies in these cells lead to a variety of colorblindness. Now they have found that there is a 4th type of cone, distinguishable in the retina of females ( no known males have it) . When 25 females having the cone were tested however, only one was able to use the extra color vision. A computer generated 3 colored circles, which males and inactive gene females saw as the same each time. But on a random basic one circle was not pure, but had a small percentage of red or green added to it. The one female got 25/25 correct. They estimate that she can see 100,000 to 1,000,000 more shades of colors than males or untrained females with the extra cone. The title of the article is "Super Human Vision". When pearl grading was done by humans as to color shades, the graders were women whoi had trained for it. Men couldn't do it, tell the over 1000 shades of white required.

So TPG should train superhuman vision women to grade toned coins, and tone loving collectors should train their female partners and family to pick the best toning Women when trained would also tend to be best color experts in art, design, clothing determination. Men and most women are trichromats, but some women are the super "tetrachromats".

To put it into perspective, trained tetrachromats could see the full color range, whereas males and untrained possible women tetrachromats would be seeing like current red-green colorblind males do, a big loss of color sensory input. None of the men or women of the experimental team could pass the test, so they could not express what the extra colors look like. Nor could the 1 woman. How can you describe red to someone who has never seen "red" ?

Jim

 

Sometimes one just can't tell an old rusty car from a coin. Heel... or check for ear hair.