It's bad enough that people cook coins in the oven into unrealistic color patterns, and then offer them to the gullible public at inflated prices. What's worse is when you do it to a desirable variety: Look underneath the eagle's tailfeathers. See the line? This is VAM-3A1. It's is the least-desirable die state of the 4 identified, but in my experience it's a pretty underrated rarity. I don't think I've seen an average of one 3A a year in ten years of watching 1921's on Ebay; this is the first I've seen in 2016.
Yeah, even if the coin had been purchased and stripped of the color, it would still be predisposed to retone similarly.
I contemplated buying it and seeing if I coulr reduce the toning electrochemically, but the price is too steep and I'm unsure it's simply silver sulfide. No telling what sort of concoction the seller used to create the color. Looking at his other offerings, though, it's plain he's either doing something to them himself or buying them from someone who does.
I bought this raw a couple years ago when I first started collecting. I bought before I even knew what a VAM was.....I was the sucker that didn't even know about AT. I believe I paid about $60 for it. (because it was pretty) Later discovered vamming and that this was a Super CD. I to this day can't tell what's AT and what's not....it's really frustrating.....can this type of toning be reversed? Someone like a NGC or PCGS correct the issue? Is it worth fixing if it was possible?
Don't feel bad, it's really just an educated guess in the majority of cases except for the really bad ones. Heck numismatics can't even come to a consensus opinion opinion on what is natural and what is AT. Sure we can all agree that baking a coin in the over is AT or a coin toned in a bag from the mint sitting in a vault is natural but there are countless cases between those extremes where some people will say natural and others AT. Personally I stopped caring about whether I thought it was helped or not and just started caring about what the final product looks like and whether I like it or not.
