Master List of eBay Sellers to Avoid

Not the ... (Wait for it.) ... gas chamber!?!? Bump, bum, baaaaahh.

 

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Maybe I am in the minority, but I never went for toning, and here's why. Even in natural toning, the metal is fatigued/ distressed/ breaking down/ oxidizing and the quality of the coin is deteriorating.
In AT while some have eye appeal, it is almost the same to me as harshly and improperly cleaning a coin, because you have changed the appearance of the coin in an unnatural way (usually by using chemicals or other unapproved methods).

 

I'm not sure either position has a majority share of the market. Toner collectors certainly hold the title for paying up for color but there is still a large portion of the market that loves blast white coins and wants nothing but that. If anything the minority is probably the people that like both depending on the coin

 

That's not entirely true. Natural toning, if you want to call it that, from my understanding, is from a layer of silver sulfide. Take Morgan dollars for instance. The ones that sat in mint bags for years. Those bags were treated with sulfer to keep rats from chewing through them. The coins that were touching the canvas gained a this layer of silver sulfide that retracts the light shining upon the surface and what we see is that breakdown of light reflecting back to our eyes, also called color. Its not that the metal is breaking down, some cases maybe, but the toning that those Morgan's took years to build up is just a chemical layer on the surface of the coin.

It looks pretty so people created a market for them, and now every coin that exhibits color needs a "premium" just because some amazing looking common date Morgan sold for really high prices due to toning.

 

Exactly where I stand. I expect a modern coin to be blast white, or whatever it started as, and I find deep toning obscene. Similarly, a truly old coin should be expected to have aged in color, maybe even blackish. Nothing looks dumber than a significantly worn large cent showing red. Knowing where the in between material falls requires research into how the best examples were typically stored or handled versus the circulated ones. Some series were true workhorses of commerce, such as Barbers generally. Bust halves, on the other hand, were used in large number for interbank transactions and survive in high grade in astonishing numbers. Not so the dimes and quarters. High grade Morgans are around because nobody other than in the west wanted the stupid things. So they sat in bags until Nixon sold them. The seated coinage saw peace, war, hoarding, hiding and reconstruction, and so are around in a wide range of conditions and colors. A coin has to fit its history to be "real" and God forbid we fail to "keep it real".

 

Just look at my avatar. I obviously like the toners. But if it looks like they were toned in five minutes and given ugly uneven color I don't want them. And not all natural toners are good looking.

Color on a coin just gives some uniqueness to an otherwise common coin. But only if it's attractive.

I like fully lusterous examples too

 

This looks like the place to ask. I just started reading Coin Talk recently trying to get up to date. My collection is a complete BU, PL, UNC, Gem BU, etc. set of Commems collectected in the -60s before slabs.

My question is this - is "toning" desirable or not? A few of mine have started to turn around the edge and my Pan Pacific $1 now has a horizontal stripe across the horse.

They had been in a bank box for 50 years and when I took them out I was very upset to see this discoloration.

Yet I read in different places here that toning adds to value.

Thanks - Rick

 

I don't know if toning adds "value" or not. It certainly drives up the prices of what toned collectors will pay. I own exactly five coins that can be called toned. I did not pay a premium for any of them.

 

Rick, I'm dead serious - DO NOT MESS WITH THOSE COINS IN ANY WAY. You are in the proverbial catbird seat, my man. You are solid gold with your coins EXACTLY as they now are.

 

Like Kurt said, do not touch them!!! Leave them alone. Keep them out of high humidity, don't touch them with you fingers, don't wipe them with a rag, don't do anything. If they are turning color around the edges, that's probably natural and in some case adds to the eye appeal of the coin. Leave them be.

By trying to "make them better" you will only ruin their value.

 

Between cleaning coins and artificially toning coins, has anyone stopped to think how many collectables are ruined every year by the greedy?

 

Way to keep it on topic, guys.

 

Thanks - mine are in those cardboard holders with 4 staples at the corners. I was thinking of sending the ones with discoloration to Tampa for restoration.

 

I guess it's my fault - everyone was talking about Ebay gyps and I threw in whether toning was good or bad. Sorry!!

 

you should see my overpriced deals thread...

 

The other thing I find sketchy about that edynamics guy is that he has about 3-4 different eBay selling accounts. That being said - I bought a slabbed toner from him once which turned out to have way different color than the hue of the listing photos showed, but it actually ended up being a lot nicer than the photos.

To the original question, I can't think of any sellers in general I have vendettas against, but it does kind of rub me the wrong way when I see dealers with the PNG membership logo in their listings selling overpriced problem coins.

 

I bet this person could here if they joined the board. In case you haven't noticed, there's a double standard here; it's fun and fair game to bash non-members, but with it comes to member transgressions, well, they're infinitely forgivable and apparently easily forgettable too.

 

When someone describes their coins as being "complete BU, PL, UNC, Gem BU, etc." more often than not, I've discovered, they're usually anything but. Perhaps this gentleman is the exception though, and if anything, he probably should have someone take a look before deciding what, if anything, he should do.

 

Did not say I prefer blast white coins, as they all appear to be cleaned or dipped to me. I understand that if dipped properly, it can be an acceptable method of "conserving" a coin. But there seems to be a Catch-22 as you are still using a harsh solvent to clean material away.

And I doubt that the toning on a copper cent is from silver sulfide.

 

Great points, all. What a trained vs. an untrained eye sees often is at variance. The thing that gives me hope is that these seem to be classic commems.