Natural Toning Versus Artificial Toning

There have been a few toning threads lately that have sparked my interest in naturally toned coins. I am new to the toning market and had some questions. How can you tell the difference between natural and artificial? What are typical premiums you pay for toned coins.

Thanks for the help.

 

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I think the entire hobby is waiting for an answer.

In all seriousness, most chemical reactions that cause toning over time can be accelerated. Is it still "natural" if a reaction converting silver to silver sulfide takes years in an album or bank bag can be replicated in hours? The reaction products are still the same. Therefore, is it still natural?

That's one of the reasons this topic is so polarizing.

 

There are ways to tell. An easy way to tell if youre buying on ebay: if the seller is edynamicmarketing then it is artificial toning.

 

Differences between natural and artificial is up for debate/hazy at times but you can often spot the clearly artificial ones easily with practice. Premiums vary depending on the appeal and what people want to pay for that appeal. The toning premium thread can help get a grasp on that.

I would stick with slabbed examples and look for not only toned coins but ones that look like they have nice luster to go with it that catch your eye. Also ignore the haters if you like a toned coin then who cares what anyone else thinks. I love blast white coins as much as the next person but all of my favorite coins have ended up being ones with some color on them, lucky for me I've only paid a premium on a few.

 

Stuff to think about. I was a blast white guy but then I started thinking about originality in grading. If the toning is very nice can it bump a coin up a grade even if it has some marks that indicate a lower grade?

 

Agreed, many artificial toners are obvious, but there are ones that are harder to tell for sure. Many tend to have disagreements as to the authenticity of the toning. This is the grey area. To me, if you like the colors, and can't tell the difference, does it really matter that much unless it's a high value coin??? With the market seeming to be saturated with toners, if you need to be sure, get a graded example.
New question... Can the TPGSs tell for sure??? No doubt better at distinguishing the differences than the average collector, but 100% accurately??? I'm doubtful, as counterfeits can squeak by on occasion.

 

It can because eye appeal is a factor in the grade. For me though when I buy a toned coin the eye appeal isn't just a factor it's the #1 priority and everything else is secondary. I bought the coin in my avatar as a 66 and would have paid the same if it was a 65, the grade is just a number and it doesn't even enter my mind with that coin because the eye appeal is so great in hand (it would not CAC or come even close to it and that doesn't bother me at all). Others may disagree with that. When I buy a blast white coin though, I really focus on getting a nice for the grade coin that's where strike and surfaces become my focus (and luster which toned or not is always a must for me).

NGC has their star rating which instead of giving a major bump they add the star which I like a lot but those get pricey.

 

Inquiring whether tarnish is natural or artificial is like asking whether a woman is a human or a witch. I hate to break this to you as you're evidently just trying to learn the ropes, so to speak, but witches don't exist anymore than artificial tarnish exists. That is to say, all women are humans, and all tarnish is natural, period. That doesn't mean it's incumbent upon you to have to like all women anymore than it means it's incumbent upon you to have to like all tarnish. You don't. Really. It's A-OK...

 

Maybe NGC should change their star rating to "Broomstick " rating with appropriate symbol

 

Very blurry line between the two. At this point it's whether the toning is market acceptable or not.

 

I found a nice toned roll of 1941-D Cents a couple years ago, and ended up selling many of the coins raw. The original owner had taken them out of the original bank paper and put them into a plastic tube. There was some variation in toning through the roll, but in general they all exhibited green and pink near the edges. Some were darker than others, and there were roll end coins.

About 20 of these (maybe more) ended up being sent in for grading by their buyers. The nicest ones graded MS67+RB, and the lowest grade I know about was MS65RB. However, about 1/3 of those sent in were deemed AT. Most or all of these were sent in a second (or third) time, and eventually all ended up with a straight grade.

This serves to emphasize that even coins from the same roll, with similar toning, can be mistaken for AT. It also tells me that (perhaps) the services are pretty strict with their interpretation of AT vs NT, though I am sure folks can cite similar examples of known AT coins that easily straight graded.

 

It's the stuffy shirts who promote it and the poor fools who don't know any better who swallow it. You know, you might recall, there was a time when the majority of people believed in the existence of witches, too. There's something about that, the majority believing in things that's influential. It's almost like a contagion. Any poor fool coming along catches the bug and accepts it without question at the expense of suspending their ability to think critically. I think that's amazing. It's like magic, like they're under a witch's spell. If you think about it, I mean. Give it a real good going over...

 

I'm trying to piece together which poor fools you are acting better than and condescending on the internet towards. Is it the ones who enjoy NGC star designation coins?

 

Lots of comments on this thread. How about some answers to this part of the OP's post: "How can you tell the difference between natural and artificial?"

Anyone care to post some of the usual characteristics seen on naturally toned coins or those that look natural enough to be market acceptable? While you are at it, perhaps we can post some things that indicate artificial toning.

Let's play a game. Use a plus (+) before the natural characteristics and a minus (-) before the negative characteristics. I'll try first with two of the easy ones I read about on other threads here:

- brown colored toning that appears to "flow" around the coin's relief.
+ "pull-away" next to the relief and outward toward the edge.

Forget the + or - let's use and ! You guys need to get your colors and faces on.

 

edited - behave yourself eddie, you know better. And yeah, that goes for everybody else too !

 

edited

Is this where we claim how smart we are over the internet? Should we skip to challenging each other to an IQ test that will never happen?

I'll just stick to not judging people for what they enjoy. You keep doing you though.

 

Here's your answer:

Artificially Toned (i.e. Not Natural):


Naturally Toned (According to PCGS):