Featured Can you define artificial toning ?

Banksy's last painting sold for 1.4 million dollars and after the hammer hit , it started to shred itself. The buyer was offered money back but he refused estimating it was now worth about 5 million or more.

If it translates to coins, if someone AT a coin and someone else buys it and destroys most of the toning with silver dip, what would the price then be as it was art??

jim
https://www.cnn.com/videos/style/2018/10/06/banksy-painting-self-destructs-orig-tc.cnn

 

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gotta hand it to those lepercons , they do have a sense of humor. every time I follow a rainbow I get lost. he received a dime, and he acquired some nickles, which are very cool, just give me the gold.
on a lighter note I'm currently storing a few pennies in a solid brass container , which has no patina at all...very new...i'll call it my piggy bank. is this AT. 2 months and waiting for results if any . no gasses, ..not my knowledge...other than the normal everyday finger pulling. maybe i'll put it in the window to get some of the traffic gasses.

 

I assume whatever the next buyer was willing to pay!

 

Doug, So without reading 12 pages of responses my definition of AT is the intentional act adding a chemical or heat to an environment where a coin is stored to cause toning.

I have 5 1968 proof sets for the last 10 years or so. When I bought them I liked the way the nickels and quarters were starting to tone. I cracked the cases open but keep the shell together to give them some more air but did not change anything else about the storage method. Is this a subtle method of artificially affecting the toning? I don't think so but that's just me and others are welcome to disagree. It will probably take another 10 years to get to the point I pull them out of their set holders and place into airtites to stabilize/stop the toning process.

 

I remember seeing that and that whole story just kind of blew my mind. If the auction house was honestly unaware that much extra metal had been built into the frame that's a little scary

 

Personally, I see the difference between artificial and natural toning as being time. Artificially toned coins are all done in a hurry .Naturally toned coins take years or decades to develop their hues.

 

And the difference can be significant if you know what to look for.

 

Time is relative, and flexible and, according to Einstein, "the dividing line between past, present, and future is an illusion" ~ The AT group goes with this.

Others say it is intention: If you didn't intend for it to tone it is NT, but if you did, it is AT.
~ Rather mystical in many minds.

Others say " Magic with Chemistry", or " Give the customer what they want", or " Follow the Money"

Pick your poison Jim

 

Do coins do interviews?

 

AT- A cheap way to shaft the un-educated, un-knowing numismatists by way of making the rest of us look bad, ie, heating a coin to extreme temperature, chemical introduction or other means which causes damage. IMHO.

 

Now, now, Doug. If we want to insist people stop fooling themselves, I'm not so sure numismatics has a future AT ALL!

 

Doug, I hardly ever believe in black and white as you would suggest. The larger chemical concentration/humidity/temperature at which the AT chemical reaction occurs (I feel often) produces different results than small concentration over prolonged periods of time. Can you for certain tell the difference between AT and NT as I described it above, no. NT can look like AT and AT can look like NT but from my experience I feel I can say with a level of comfort that a coin is at least suspect of AT.

If someone takes the time to control the environment (chemical, temperature, and humidity) well enough to expedite and duplicate what natural toning patterns look like, then I agree it can be hard to tell the difference. Often, the person doing this creates the effect of a stick of dynamite versus a firecracker. Both the same reaction, just differing amounts with differing results. Both toning, just with a different look.

This looks like AT: (Stick of Dynamite effect)


This looks like NT: (more like the slow natural progression)


Interesting thing about the second and third coin is that they were in a holder that had foam for the coins to sit on. The foam is likely the chemical source for the toning. The dime is much more spotty but still has a more natural progression. Someone may look at the dime as questionable while the quarter looks more natural.

 

The experiments I run are in a controlled atmosphere lately, and all variables are pretty much available for tinkering. Playing and experimenting can be over whatever time period I choose.

I am currently collecting "reagents" for a new set of experiments. And I do NOT release my experiments into the wild. Most of them I dip back to white, just in case. Rarely I will save one I particularly like. My experiments have one purpose and one alone - increase MY KNOWLEDGE of what kind of junk is out there.

When I feel I have enough to warrant a Money Talk at an ANA show, I'll blow up the toner market all by myself, just like I did in smaller format with my MT on how photo chemicals can tone silver. Laying down thin sulfur layers on silver is one of the easiest things to do in chemistry. PREVENTING IT is what's tough.

And trust me, once I'm certain I can do it on demand, which I'm fairly close to doing, I WILL blow this market to smithereens. I owe this whole "COLOR" scam NO immunity, and I'll give it none. I don't owe these crooks anything.

 

Way back when I was a physics student we learned the need for operational definitions. A definition that is based on procedure and measuring is a sharp tool for slashing through the unknowable.

Here we have a big unknowable. How did the coin get to be the way we see it now? We don’t know and cannot know. So let’s discard that from our reasoning.

Instead, let’s measure.

This is not a PhD thesis, so I just toss out some thoughts.

• Are the colors in the right order
• Are the color transitions smooth
• Is the color cleanly bonded to the surface
• How does the toning wrap the devices
• And things you can see that are obvious visible criteria. Each of you can think of several.

Combine this with @BadThad ’s observation. If one set of criteria is met, the coin is Market Acceptable and may sell for a premium (except to Kurt). If the criteria are not met, it’s not MA and should sell for less.

To even ask the AT / NT question is to veer off into religion or philosophy, where pondering the unknowable is better considered.

 

I agree with all of that.

 

It all depends on how much time, money, and expertise you want to throw at the problem. Here is THE essential problem - as long as there is silly demand for this stuff that has not been exhausted, the upper limit of how much someone wants to throw at making more of it is ALSO without an apparent top end. You cannot EVER be sure you're looking at a legit coin, but for some shlubs with just enough awareness to be dangerous, ANY color is worth paying extra for, and THAT is as silly as anything has ever gotten in the hobby. I refuse to play the game. As long as the incentives are aligned the way they presently are, it's not a game worth playing at ANY price.

 

Cannot that be said for any collectible anything?

I agree - understanding your definition of legit.

I personally do not go crazy over buying toned coins but I do find some that are appealing regardless of how they came to be that way.

You have drawn your line just as others are welcome to draw their own in terms of buying toned coins.

"Buyer beware" is enough of a warning for me to understand the coin I might purchase may have been toned at an accelerated pace using an intentional method. IMO - Life is to short to try and fix some injustices.