From the articles I read the progression of toning looks real. Again very much a novice here what are your thoughts?...Thanks
Not much of a progression to evaluate but the toning looks like a secondary toning that formed after the coin was dipped. I would like to add that those photos are overexposed and possibly saturated. I would expect the toning to be much darker and the colors to be less vibrant in hand. Do you have an image of the coin that is not blown up, something akin to a slab photo?
In some cases I could "buy" this as original toning, but not this one. The reason is, I see crud(?) clinging to the tighter areas inside date and lettering, where a mechanical cleaning process wasn't able to reach it. After that cleaning(?), an artificial toning process was employed to hide the evidence of the cleaning. Now, the reason I used question marks after the word "cleaning" is this could also be the result of overdipping a terminally-toned coin, as Lehigh96 mentions. Seated coinage is noted for very dark toning, and I'd expect the worst (least-removable) of that toning to be in the tightest areas. So another theory is that the coin doctor dipped the coin enough to destroy the luster, yet those worst spots still weren't removed. Although Lehigh96's comments on overexposure and saturation stand, the unsubtle nature of the toning pattern is a reasonable expectation of toning artificially applied to surfaces which lack the microscopic irregularities normally contributing to the subtle "holographic" thin-film interference pattern we expect of natural toning on a coin as lightly-circulated (possibly Mint State) as this one. It's toned more like a circulated coin than a Mint State coin.
Paul said exactly what I was going to say. This coin was cleaned, (most likely dipped), and this is a retone. Its oversaturated because the seller wants to make you think it will be colorful in hand, but the coin will have lower luster and be darker and more lifeless in hand. So, if you want a darker, dull coin that once had been cleaned, this would be a good purchase. OP, go to heritage and register. Then look at lots and lots of graded mint state and AU SL half dimes. Then look at this pic again and you tell us what differences you see.
