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Message:: [QUOTE="World Colonial, post: 2480933, member: 78153"]It depends upon the series and sometimes also on the specific coin.  A recent prior post here stated they prefer coins the way it should be expected they would look.  I agree with this opinion as a general conclusion. I do own "old" coins (early and mid-18th century) which are blast white that still look attractive, but I don't know whether other collectors would find them appealing or not.  I presume they have been dipped but there isn't any obvious evidence of it that I can see, as they retain what looks to be most (though maybe not all) of the original luster and I don't see hairlines either. For 20th century series like Mercury dimes and WLH, I don't believe the coins are old enough where their default natural look should be toned or darkly toned.  There was a large collector base around to preserve them and many have been saved in rolls.  Though vastly scarcer, I hold the same opinion for the South Africa KGV (1923-1936) series where it's apparent many have been cleaned and straight graded, but not all of them. Lastly, for the purist of "original skin", eliminating any coin which cannot conform to this narrow criteria will really limit what you can collect.  Most of the coins I collect are not available either at all or if so, nowhere near the same number as US coins.  If I insisted on this look, I would have to collect something else.[/QUOTE]