Anyone want to weigh in on what happened to this cent? At first I was exited by the color, but then realied it looked "off". Since the low areas have black gunk and the high areas are shiny, my second thought was that it had been polished, but I don't see little lines in the closeups. So maybe it was dipped at some point? At any rate, it looks too worn to be a MS, and I don't get how it could have the worn spots and still be naturally red-brown. I'm hoping that the "old hands" have seen something like this before. Thanks!
That's the easy part. For whatever period of time the coin was allowed to tone, turning the overall color that you see. Then, for whatever reason, the coin experience some wear from something. The wear rubs the toning off the higher points, revealing the lighter colors underneath the toning. And as others have said it's quite common to see this effect on some coins.
