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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Lehigh96, post: 1052283, member: 15309&quot;]I think it has been well established that the toning premium in multiples of the base price is inversely proportional to that base price.&nbsp; If an MS64 Morgan Dollar has the same toning as an MS67 Morgan, the toning premium in multiples will be much higher for the MS64 but the total price will still be higher for the MS67.&nbsp; I don&#039;t think you can ever develop hard and fast rules for pricing toned coins.&nbsp; There are just too many variables.&nbsp; If certain coins within a series are more difficult to locate with color, that coin may demand more of a premium, but only to the small number of collectors who are actually trying compete a toned series set.&nbsp; In my experience, most toned coin collectors don&#039;t care about date/mm, they just want toned coins.&nbsp; Heck, I own 20 rainbow toned 1881-S Morgan Dollars.</p><p><br /></p><p>Regarding the varied guesses you are seeing in this thread, you need to remember a few things.&nbsp; Some of the people in this thread who are guessing are basically students of the game and don&#039;t really have a firm grasp of pricing toned coins.....YET!&nbsp; Also, keep in mind that many of the people posting coins are actively trying to fool the guessers.&nbsp; That is not really in the spirit of the thread, but there is no way to stop it as people are proud of the fact that they got a coin at a bargain price.&nbsp; Lastly, the mindset of the people guessing needs to be discussed.&nbsp; I think Shane is very good a pricing toned coins, but his guesses in many cases have been a little low.&nbsp; I really think he is pricing them using current market conditions and not necessarily the conditions at the time of purchase.&nbsp; Furthermore, he is pricing them from a sellers perspective which is basically what he can expect to sell the coin for.&nbsp; This will lead to lower guesses because it ignores both auction fever and the mindset of the individual who posted the coin.&nbsp; The latest Mercury Dime is a perfect example.&nbsp; Baha and I posted nearly identical coins that sold for $27 &amp; $75 respectively.&nbsp; It shouldn&#039;t surprise anybody that I paid 3X more for a coin than Baha and it explains why he doesn&#039;t own a lot of toners.&nbsp; He obviously doesn&#039;t place as much of a premium on toning as I and many others do.&nbsp; As a result, he will be outbid often on toned coins.</p><p><br /></p><p>Your last sentence leads me to believe that you are of the camp that the toned coin market is a fad and that you were hoping this thread could convince you that there is a solid foundation to support the premiums associated with toned coins.&nbsp; Most of the coins posted in this thread had a very small premium related to the toning.&nbsp; That is actually very representative of reality.&nbsp; Most toning is considered neutral and has very little effect on price.&nbsp; It is rare that the toning creates the eye appeal necessary to drive a premium.&nbsp; If it was not rare, nobody would pay that premium.</p><p><br /></p><p>If you want a foundation for the toning premium, this is the best explanation I can give you.&nbsp; None of us are responsible for creating the premium prices for toned coins.&nbsp; Those prices are generated by the open market which relies on supply and demand.&nbsp; Currently, the number of toned coins in relation to the number of collectors who desire toned coins is such that they will often drive significant premiums.&nbsp; These conditions are a function of two factors, improvements in digital photography and the internet.&nbsp; Now that a child can whip out a point and shoot and post a quality photograph of a rainbow toned coin on E-Bay, the exposure that these coins have is unlimited.&nbsp; Now think back 10 years.&nbsp; Even the largest auction houses like Heritage had trouble displaying the eye appeal of toned coins.&nbsp; As a result, they did not drive the same premiums because nobody knew about them.&nbsp; Well the secret is out and we can&#039;t put it back.</p><p><br /></p><p>The only way to change it now is if either the supply goes up or the demand goes down.&nbsp; Since toning takes decades under most conditions, the only real threat on the supply side is Artificial Toning.&nbsp; Since eye appeal never goes out of style, the only threat on the demand side is the authenticity of the toning, in other words, Artificial Toning.&nbsp; More to the point, the demand for toned coins will drop when collectors lose confidence in the TPG&#039;s to weed out AT coins during the grading process.</p><p><br /></p><p>We are in the midst of the worst economic recession since the great depression and the toned coin market has not collapsed.&nbsp; Prices have dropped some, but not anymore or less than any other are of numismatics IMO.&nbsp; The dreck (common material with common toning) has taken the biggest hit, but the higher graded coins with great eye appeal have done much better and will likely continue to do so.</p><p><br /></p><p>I think a good way to summarize the thread would be to take all of the photos and post them in order of smallest premium (in multiples of base price) to largest premium.&nbsp; Once you do that, I think the visual impact of the quality of toning and foundation for the premiums will become evident.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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