Really love this coin, but I feel like the price is a little steep. Is $100 a fair price to pay for this?
If you need to ask... Ok, sorry for the smarty pants reply. If you collect toning or Lincolns and you love it, than I'll bet someone else with those interests would love it too and pay the price. As for me, I love the coin too but it's not worth even $20 to me. If I owned it, I should price it at $250 and find a greater fool.
I don't like toned proofs to begin with--you've always gotta get the right lighting and coordinates to get the thing to look decent anyhow, otherwise it's just a dark coin with some weird look smudges. $100 is quite the markup, but I like Insider's scheme. Luckily toned coins give us that option: when we're bored with them, let's just mark them up even higher, in the hopes that someone thinks that premium is fair.
The spots on the obverse is a turn off to me but the reverse is pretty cool. I guess it would be like seeing a mermaid you are wowed at first but then you notice the tail and that's all you can see.
At PR69RB (not even CAM or DCAM), aside the color the coin isn't even worth the cost of the slab. Heck, it doesn't even appear in the PCGS Population report. PCGS Pop lists 6453 of these, and 6448 of them are DCAM. Only one doesn't carry at least the CAM designation. This would be the second. It would be your choice as to whether a markup that massive just for the color is appropriate. I sure don't think so.
It sold at auction for 77 + 4.99 shipping. So I would not expect someone to ask less than 100 when selling. If someone is trying to put together a set of toned proof Lincoln cents, there are not too many available from the most recent dates, so the premium may be justified. http://www.ebay.com/itm/1998-s-PCGS...D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557
