1957 Jefferson Nickel: Artificial or Natural Toning?

C’mon man, all three coins are QT, I knew that when I sent them, but the surfaces were so nice on the coins, it was worth a shot.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

They're marketing decisions. This is their professional reputation you're playing with. Information on the storage conditions? Don't make me laugh. They still can't define what they mean, and neither can you define it, nor can anybody else, except in a very abstract way any 10-year-old can likely cross-examine and take apart in a heartbeat, right before their eyes. They don't like it. They don't want their label on it. They don't want it in their market. There are other TPGs out there, but not with their market. Get it in another slab, if you don't like it. But most of all, quit thinking there's a rhyme or reason behind it. You'll drive yourself as crazy as they are if you do. It's just money. Nothing the less arbitrary or capricious than that.

 

Questionable color is a cop out by them.
It's basically saying, "yeah we can't for sure say it's artificial toning or Natural toning but in this instance, we don't like it so thanks for the money sucker, feel free to crack out and try again later!

I mean you are paying them for a evaluation if it's genuine, the grade and if the surfaces are natural, and their answer is "we don't know, so no, it QT, BOUNCE!"

bet if you cracked them out and submitted them one here or there with other coins that aren't toned they'd straight grade it. Probably checked your history or this submission and looked at them as a whole and they THINK you might be artificially toning.

Still taking your money though....

I guess the question should have been "do you think PCGS will cop out and take the QT route on these so they don't have to do their job and still get paid?"

They problem free CLEARLY Artifically Toned coins so it doesn't surprise me they decide questionable color in order to not make a determination besides "we don't like it for some reason".
Their reason.... was probably too many colored up coins in one submission...

 

How could they definitively call a coin AT? They know nothing about the coin before they view it. And I knew what they were going to do going in, I told everyone all three coins were gonna go QT, but the payoff if one straight graded was just to good to not try.

Here I agree with you, I think they should label the coin MS6X details Questionable color rather than the generic UNC Details.

I will take that bet. All three coins are QT to my eyes and the two of them are blatantly AT. I don't submit enough coins to PCGS for them to check my history for submitting toned coins. I don't think they are trying to scam me by not doing their job, in fact, I think they did their job by grading all three QT.

And that is why I took a shot, cause they do let some AT slip by. The submission was 30 coins and there were other toned coins from multiple denominations in the submission. These were the only ones to get bagged for QT.

We can speculate about why these coins came back QT, or we can apply Occam's Razor and deduce that the coins came back QT because they are QT.

 

Fair enough I suppose.
Just kind of infuriating to know they grade out very similar colored coins, and much more blatant examples that scream "how can this not be artificial toning!" as well.
I get that it's likely QT or QC but I still think they should either flat out AT it or let it pass and straight grade and not take the "it's questionable" route.

They'd either QC it or put a star or + on it depending on the mood..

 

I'm with @John Burgess on this; they should either bag it or pass it. Aren't they getting paid to make a determination on things like this?

It's almost like they're saying "It could be good, it could be bad, but we won't put our name on it with a definitive, so you roll the dice".

 

It could easily be different if you only include one questionable coin compared to multiple (especially of the same date/same type). I've seen it before where people have sent in too many and all come back QC but when they sent them mixed with non-toned coins, they grade (biggest example was with ASEs-the king of modern AT that often enough can get by).

 

The 57-P is the only one that really has a shot, and it had it, I’m not sending it in again!

 

It's likely not worth the fees. However, you might see it down the line in a straight graded holder if you do sell it. That happened with me last year on a Mexican Libertad. It was closer to AT but I saw it in a PCGS MS 67 holder several months after selling it in the holder below.

 

Here’s a good question, how should I price these 3 coins?

 

It will likely be a challenge to get a big premium (not impossible but hard). The two that are closer to MA, I'd price higher. The one time I had two AT NGC Jeffersons, I struggled to sell them (finally did at $25 for the pair). I've also seen some of the PCGS QC proofs go for $25-$35 each (while some were less than $10-those were auctions and definitely not the best strategy). The Libertad above, I ended up selling for my cost plus grading fees ($64). When I saw it in a straight graded holder, the asking price was in the $300s.