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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Troodon, post: 357141, member: 4626&quot;]That&#039;s exactgly the reason I usually avoid toned coins.&nbsp; Besides the fact I usually don&#039;t care for toning... the few times I see a piece with what I consider to be attractive toning there&#039;s just no way of knowing whether it&#039;s artificial or not.&nbsp; Not even the experts seem to know or agree, so what chance do I have?&nbsp; Not only do the experts disagree on whether a given coin is artificially toned or not... they can&#039;t even agree on what &quot;artifical toning&quot; even means.&nbsp; This all adds up to it being silly to pay a premium for toning... collect what you like of course... but it just seems a waste to pay a cent more for a toned coin that it would otherwise be worth without the toning when it is so easy to fake and even the experts can&#039;t agree on what toning is real or not.</p><p><br /></p><p>I guess it depends on semantics and/or opinion whehter or not intentionally doing something to a coin to cause it to tone automatically makes the toning artificial or not.&nbsp; If being in a certain environment would cause the coin to tone naturally, is it still natural when you intentionally put the coin in that type of environment?&nbsp; Why is it natural when a silver coin tones by being in the bottom of a bank bag made with sufurous chemicals, but artificial if you intentionally expose a coin to those same chemicals on purpose?&nbsp; What&#039;s the difference?&nbsp; Chemically, there isn&#039;t one; it all boils down to opinion and personal preference basically.&nbsp; I&#039;ve seen some coins which most would call &quot;artificially toned&quot; that look much better than so-called <i>real</i> toning... the whole notion not only that you can tell what&#039;s artficial and what isn&#039;t... or even if any coin can truly be artificially toned or not... seems rather notional at best...&nbsp; Perhaps we should start using the term &quot;intentionally toned&quot; instead?&nbsp; Even then, you wouldn&#039;t always be able to tell... so why bother making the distinction in the first place, for that matter?&nbsp; The reasonable thing to do is to say that toning should not add or subtract anything to the value of a coin it seems... but I don&#039;t see that happening anytime soon.&nbsp; Not as long as there are people who will pay extra for what they subjectively deem to be attractive toning.&nbsp; And as long as those people exist, sellers will find a way to intentionally tone coins... at some point they will get so good at it that nobody will ever be able to tell an artificially toned coin from a naturally toned one.&nbsp; What happens then?&nbsp; Probably the end of toning adding any premium to a coin I suppose... why wait?&nbsp; Do that now... if people stop paying the premiums sellers will have to quit charging them eventually.</p><p><br /></p><p>Of course collect whatever you like, even artificially toned coins if you so desire.&nbsp; I&#039;ll stick to the non-toned coins lol... they&#039;re cheaper and I like the way they look better, so it&#039;s a win-win for me if people keep paying the big bucks for toned coins.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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