Reply to Thread

Message:: [QUOTE="desertgem, post: 1012537, member: 15199"]Money/value is one reason some insist that there be a separation. Natural toning brings more value than artificial ( if one could distinguish). In fact many insist that AT coins are damaged, even though the chemical reactions are the same. In previous times before the advent of modern spectrographic analysis, many felt the reactions were different and distinguishable, although they are not. Some still believe this and that they ( with their "spectroscopic vision" )can tell AT from NT. They are just fooling themselves. You can believe the earth is flat with great fervor, but that doesn't make it so. Others feel they are traditionalists, wanting to keep the coins in their pristine "fresh from the mint" condition, even though most ( according to many)pre-64 bright silver coins have seen the chemical dip. Their desire, although hard to obtain and almost impossible to maintain, is that of a true collector as is the desire of those who only intervenes in the toning process to limit it when it approaches irreversible "corrosion", and loves the color their coins take on as they like their owners age. The way things are going in numismatics, I expect soon an article or  advertisement in Coin World about a "coming out " of coin doctors. Jim [/QUOTE]