Is this a Sunnywood Toned Morgan?

Where you located? I might know someone in the area, or close enough for shipping to be reasonable. I lack a bespoke axial lighting rig at the moment, or I'd want a shot at it myself.

 

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Can anyone tell me (in less than 50 words) what a Sunnywood morgan is?

 

In a nutshell, Sunnywood put together the most spectacular collection of rainbow toned morgans ever assembled. People told him he was crazy for paying such huge premiums for them and he would never get the money back out of them. He then sold the entire collection for over a million dollars and cleaned up. It was a seminal event in the pantheon of toned morgan collecting

 

Thanks.

 

It should also be noted that Doug Kurz (the man who assembled what he called the Sunnywood Collection) explored the toning process in excruciating scientific depth, and defined the color progression of thin-film interference, giving us a valuable tool for evaluating the originality of toning on silver coins. Here's more than you'll ever want to know about toned silver:

http://www.jhonecash.com/research/sunnywood_classification.asp

 

Haha, I called Doug "Sunnywood". I used to do that a while ago before I read up on him. Thanks for the clarification dave and for elaborating on the technical aspect. Knew you would

 

I'm in the Bay Area. I know Todd of bluccphotos.com is local-ish in Sacramento. I'd love to find someone even more local, if anyone knows someone.

I hate to hijack the thread, but the coin I'm referring to is absolutely amazing. It's the best toning I've ever seen on an ASE anywhere online, or in person. The dealer who sold it to me said that on the scale of stuff he's seen (and he's one of us who's crazy for toners), it's a 9/10.

 

Send it to Todd for crying out loud. Did you know that your coin is insured under his insurance even when it's in the mail on the way TO him

 

I had no idea that "toners" could be so intricate...thanks for sharing.

 

I'm ready.

 

His work is one of the reasons we can look at certain toners - not all of them - and instantly pronounce them artificial. Some artificial toning processes happen so quickly the "break" the expected color progressions in a fashion we know to be unnatural.

 

Well my 2 cents on the op's coin in question.

It looks great!
It is too expensive for me.
It looks like less then many others that are that eye appealing but still too much for me. lol

 

Beautiful collection of coins...just lovely.

 

Must not have been paying attention when this thread was started. A nice coin but all of Sunnywood's common date Morgans were premium gem and most were either MS67 or MS68. I never need an excuse to take a look at the Sunnywood collection but thanks for giving me one anyway.

 

I agree that $1K is a very high price for that coin with toning which I don't personally find that attractive. The 1886 is one of the easiest dates to find with rainbow toning in MS64 & MS65. Personally I like my MS64 Battle Creek much more than that coin and I didn't pay anywhere near $1K for it. I call it the "pink eye" dollar.

 

Pink eye!?... That's a "Demon Dollar" if I ever saw one

She *literally* looks like a demon coming out of the darkness of hell into our colorful world. Very nice

 

Didn't Sunnywood have his Toned Collection Pedigreed?

 

You see demon, I see a melting pot of natural colors.
She sure is purtty!

 

Yup. And if she were mine I'd name her "Little Nicki"

 

While attractive toning will always command a premium, the exorbitantly high prices of rainbow toning on common date Morgans are a fad. Eventually the pendulum will swing and some people will have lost thousands in potential resale value.

Just putting my opinion out there. You don't have to believe in this.