Passing off damaged Silver Eagles as regular ones

Yes, there is a small percentage, maybe 5-10%, of people who buy business strike ASE's that think they have a numismatic premium. But to everybody else who buys them, 90-95% of the buyers, they have no numismatic premium at all. To those folks, they are just chunks of silver. They'll walk into a coin shop and buy 10 or 20 of them, throw them in their pocket or in a bag and walk out. And when they get home they'll throw them in a bucket with all the others they have. They don't care at all if the ASE's are toned, scratched, dinged, or beat up.

That said, the people/buyers being talked about in this thread are those in that small percentage. Those folks collect the ASE's, and they do care about the shape they are in. And that small percentage is broke into even smaller groups. There is a group that likes the coins toned, and another group that does not like any toning at all. But neither of those two groups want scratches or dings on their coins.

Those that like the toned coins will even pay more of a premium, sometimes they will even pay several multiples of what an untoned example would sell for. And at the same time those who don't like the toning wouldn't buy that same toned ASE unless it was sold at a discount.

Different people have different likes and taste in their coins. That's really all it comes down to.