Featured Can you define artificial toning ?

I am, and so must your mommy be. I know this can get scary, but it'll be okay. If you've never been, that show is PRIMARILY the creature of one dealer, and most of the rest are peripheral, but you will find some nice stuff. There was one other guy from the coal regions, but he moved to the Charlotte, NC region.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

You really are an enigma. Didn't you once vehemently defend GSC to me on this very forum? And didn't you just tell me in this thread that accumulating is crass & ugly, yet you own over 100,000 coins?

Are you reading the books as penance for your hoarding sin?

 

No, as a break from all that attributing.

 

God rest her soul but I doubt it, she thought spending hundreds of dollars on a nickel was silly. And I'm not scared, other than I'm afraid a show of this size will have very little to interest me. This is going to be an exploratory effort and maybe I can help make a connection with a local dealer.

 

GSC is an enigma. I find their pictures easier to "read" than virtually anyone else's, and I know VERY few people agree with me on that. It must be a random happenstance. My eye lenses ARE artificial and have their own serial numbers, so there's that. When I had those surgeries, my color perception RADICALLY changed. My natural eye lenses had gone VERY brownish. It's like I had to get re-familiarized with the color blue.

I've been collecting for over 55 years, have sold fewer coins than I have fingers, and people often "give me" huge boxes of world coins, and I carefully attribute each one, despite the fact that most are "tourist change". I have a small box of ones I haven't figured out yet. Mostly 19th century Asian.

Some people roll hunt for grins. I attribute non-US cheap coins.

 

This. This is this hobby's problem. People only THINK they've seen everything there is to see. And based on that limited sample of what they've seen, they make bold proclamations about what exists, and most of the time it's pure unadulterated bull. Just like "most coins worth having graded, already have been". Bull.

 

My invitee list for Christmas dinner is getting shorter and shorter.

 

Uh-huh. And those of us with tics, or conditions that make it hard to manage appropriate eye contact, or dreadlocks, can just take our chances with pre-judgement. Especially with those who think they can evaluate our ethics better by looking at us.

Abstracting away the touchy-feely stuff is valuable for many of us. Does that mean we have something to hide? Maybe, but in the same sense that we wear clothes because we have something to hide. (And, yes, you're welcome.)

 

Interesting thread Ya'll. It surely gives me a little confusion as to my previous beliefs of NT vs AT. As a collector of raw coins I will use this thread to my advantage in the future.
Thanks for the hours of reading.

 

AT/QT/NT/MA is all the same damnit...DAMAGE!

 

I feel no obligation to "personal problems equal opportunity" promotion of coin buying and selling. I have my own neurological issues to work with; I can't be bothered with others'. That doesn't stop or even moderately deter me from preferring "meatspace".

 

Oh, I was never under the illusion that you did.

Reread what you just said. You're deftly classifying all those characteristics as "personal problems", and assuming that people want to "use them as opportunities", rather than seeking venues where they don't block opportunities. I've got issues with those assumptions. That's all.

 

So I went to the Allentown/Bethlehem show today, and actually met up with one of our fellow members, @RonSanderson. We had a nice little chat about Jefferson Nickels, coins in general, and of course Cointalk. So good to put a face to a name, and great to meet you Ron.

I'm curious though Kurt, which dealer are you referring to when you say that show is "PRIMARILY the creature of one dealer?" If you don't feel comfortable naming him in the open forum, feel free to PM me.

 

K.D. Smith. Fine enough guy, but his bid board auction shop pretty much dominates the A-B-E coin scene.

 

Got this one today. I see a little green and I believe this one to be moisture in a bag, probably poor Mint storage in New Orleans.

A VAM 13 - Doubled 8, O/O High. Not particularly rare in our collection, but at MS64 our highest graded example of this VAM.

 

Mentally remove the toning. Now what do you guess the grade is?

 

Actually over the years I have learned that Photoshop can be very useful to examine toned coins.

There is one scratch on the cheek I don't like, but I don't have the actual coin in hand where I am right now. But to me the strike looks good and I don't know that I would argue with the grade a lot. I have seen worse in a 64 holder. I think the reverse adds a little back to the score and I like the color for style points.

 

To your point, I went back to my high res image and the color did hide some significant scratches that probably would have knocked this one down to more of the 62 range.

So in this case one might argue that the toning either masked the bag marks or added enough back to the grade to carry the day. I have seen them go in both directions where the grader did not like the toning and knocked down a coin that with no color was nearly flawless.

 

You can see those marks through the toning, and no way is that coin ever an MS62. I understand the exercise you guys are completing but the toning on this coin isn’t really deep enough to hide much.

 

All the marks you have shown are within the grade parameters for me. It's not unusual for coins that have this type of contact to have large amounts of chatter in the fields. I think that is what is hidden by the toning.

In that case I would still have this at a high 63/low 64 grade.
Honestly I wouldn't consider it a candidate for a dip either, it is nice looking coin the way it is.