Where did all of the colorful Peace dollars come from
Boosibri
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Walking the ANA floor I am struck with the number of straight graded rainbow tones Peace Dollars. Is it just me or are these becoming more common in the market for some reason 
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The "Great British Bake Off" maybe?
Who knows?
I saw a few on the bourse that looked like edynamicmarketing gassed slabs.
There were some from the 314 NGC hoard.
And some looked natural.
Dealers might have them out for sale now since prices are rising and there may be more demand.
The oven
My house fire.
Better living through chemistry.
Market demand.
8 Reales Madness Collection
I think it’s wonderful that so many posters to this thread apparently saw the coins today and have evaluated them objectively. 😉
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
LOL.
I'm not sure why 100-year-old silver that toned is so suspect. They should be more suspicious of bright white silver. Especially given the number of these that spent decades in either canvas bags or cardboard holders, toned dollars should not be a surprise or a rarity. Maybe it's just been 15 years since people stopped dipping them. LOL
I bet if you tripled the price of 1970-S proof sets, you'd suddenly find a lot of them on the bourse also. Would you consider them counterfeits?
Sadly, colorfully toned Peace dollars were very unusual in the 1960s/70s when original bags were bring distributed and opened. That so many have magically appeared during the past decade, is unexpected - and suspicious.
I'm having David Hall déjà vu:
"Note that I am of the very strong opinion that any 1921 Peace dollar...indeed any Peace dollar...that has any rainbow colors (blue, red, green, etc.) is absolutely artificially toned. While not very scientific, my approach to toning on coins is to remember the colors I saw in the 1960s and 1970s and if a new look appears, it's artificial to me. This is kind of an "old school" approach and I may be wrong, but unless you believe global warming has created new colors for coins, it just seems illogical to me that new colors would suddenly appear naturally on coins."
-- David Hall, October 2009
Demand creates its own supply. Or something like that. A variation of Say's Law.
I remember reading those comments at the time they were posted. And thinking that 1) they were unrealistically all-encompassing and 2) they were contrary to the decisions PCGS was making in assigning problem-free grades to numerous Peace Dollars which displayed some of those colors.
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
Being "...contrary to the decisions PCGS was making in assigning problem-free grades to numerous Peace Dollars which displayed some of those colors," does not mean that David Hall was incorrect.
One must remember that tens of millions of Morgan dollars were subject to destructive storage conditions. These conditions encouraged discoloration - toning. The GSA records further confirm 1897-1901 Philadelphia Mint documents. Peace dollars were stored in much newer vaults, in dry conditions, and away from contaminants. Out of all the GSA coins not one rainbow toned Peace dollar emerged. (OK, someone check this for coins still in original holders.)
Recent plethora of rainbow toned Peace dollars is very suspicious - regardless of who puts them in plastic slabs.
I have no issue with scrutiny and suspicion. I am, however, opposed to blanket condemnation. Also, there’s a big difference between rainbow toned Peace Dollars and ones displaying “any rainbow colors”.
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
I love a beautifully toned coin. However, the Peace dollar is about the only silver coin I prefer blast white. Toned Peace dollars have never resonated with me
Brian It was an absolute pleasure chatting with you today
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Fellas, leave the tight pants to the ladies. If I can count the coins in your pockets you better use them to call a tailor. Stay thirsty my friends......
I agree. David Hall's position is, I think, naive. People used to dip. People preferred blast white. The market in the 60s and 70s reflected this. Coins from airless vaults may not have toned much. But there is no doubt that cardboard holders will "naturally" (?) tone silver coins. And it doesn't take 50 years to happen.
There is also the issue of pricing bias. An ANA Heritage auction will always have more 1889-CC dollars than 1881-S dollars. An ANA Heritage auction will always have more MS66 coins than MS62 coins. That isn't because those are suddenly proliferating. It is because the pricing gets them placed front and center. The presence of toners in the marketplace, especially for common coins like the Peace $ simply reflect that common Peace $s even in high gem grade don't make anyone whip out their wallet.
Unblemished and pure blast or not so blasting white Peace for me too .......... I go to Morgan for tone
I could not understand how so many managed to tone in their own skin while others don't
A few random thoughts in no particular order:
Nice example but hardly representative. Conditions for extensive Peace dollar toning did not exist in mint vaults. If you look at old articles on the subject, you'll see that Peace dollars rarely had more than a dull brown tarnish.
Hall's remark was truthful, not naive.
Abcde that is a interesting combination with those silver crystals. What do you call that and can you post a full picture? TYIA.
Peace dollars definitely don't tone the same way as Morgans, but I've seen my share of attractively toned Peace dollars that have sat in albums or those old savings bank holders that were part of a silver dollar promotion when you opened an account. They are out there, but I don't believe mint bags will be your source.
10-4,
My Instagram picturesErik
My registry sets
For Peace dollars, I feel that many - especially those with rainbow colors - are products of artificial methods. Too many examples; too great a similarity; too suddenly available. I don't presume to separate paper napkin toned from E-Z Bake toned from gas toned and the like. Authentication businesses are supposed to have that expertise.
Then, when all is said and done, you disagree with Mr. Hall's comments, as they allowed for no exceptions.
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
"I'll take David Hall for $400, Alex."
--- and it's the DAILY DOUBLE!!!
"Alex, I'll go $5,000."
--- OK, the answer is This United States coin just doesn't come with rainbow toning.
"Alex, What is the Peace Dollar??"
Quite possibly the finest Peace dollar in existence or something like that at the time it was first posted [then toasted] here.
Please respond to my NEW POLL on toning. Thanks.
His observations IIRC and esp. with Morgans were the result of having seen the contents of many unopened original bags over the years. What qualifications/experiences do you have to contradict him?
the "badger" has nailed it. while HRH has an opinion based on many, many years of experience that was actually looking at fresh-to-the-market coins, the "Realone" has an opinion based on anecdotal evidence.
I think I'll go with HRH.
From THE MAN who would know.
https://pcgs.com/news/Morgan-Dollarsback-In-The-Day
"I've bought and sold so many 1000 coin bags of dollars it's amazing. Here are three bag stories.
First, for you toner fans. When fresh, original $1000 (1000 coin) bags were available, there were usually some great toners in the bags, and occasionally some really wild ones. When frosty Choice Uncs were $10 retail, I used to retail the insane coins for $20 to $25, and if I got something absolutely beyond wild Wayne Miller would give me $25 or $30 for it. Sure wish I would have kept 20 of the wildest. Here's the catch. I probably personally bought and sold several million common date uncirculated dollars, and I've probably seen 10 million uncirculated dollars. The toners weren't that easy to find back in the day when they were $8 or 10 a coin. If I would have saved every coin I saw, I bet it wouldn't have been much more than 100 or 200 coins out of the 10 million. That's why I'm very suspicious of some of today's toners. And many of the toners of today just aren't the same colors that were seen in the 1970s and 1980s. So unless you believe global warming is changing the color of Morgan dollars, there's something fishy about some of today's toners."
Except that talking about bank bags from vaults isn't the same as talking about coins from cabinets, albums, paper envelopes, rolls, etc.
Even a canvas bag in your basement will tone differently than a canvas bag in a dry, stale air government vault.
I called Wayne Miller a few years ago and we chatted about this for a while. While I don’t recall his exact words, the sentiment was as expressed here. He has color plates of some of the best Morgan Toners in his book and they’re pretty vanilla compared to what’s getting bought & sold today. As for Peace dollars, the blanket statement was that they just didn’t tone nicely.
I’ll allow for photography of coins being better today and many more decades of album storage to account for some of what we’re seeing, but I’m quite skeptical as well.
I love Peace toners, but not generally those with rainbow colors. These strike me as being plausibly NT:
BAJJERFAN - there is little dispute about many Morgan dollars. The discussion refers to Peace dollars.
BryceM seems to have expressed the situation very well.
Agreed. Kudos to @BryceM
I would always hesitate to pay a premium either for color or lack of color. Any change is then guaranteed to disappoint.
Those are IMO C tier toners. What's the likelihood of finding one like my avatar in an album?
Yep and I have yet to see a Peace dollar picture posted here that's anywhere close to the monster category. 1921 Morgan toners are similarly scarce.
There are all kinds of ways they tone. I saw some stellar ASE's that all had radial rainbow toning near the rim and extending into the coin. They were all "natural" as they were all in identical cardboard holders and I'm guessing it was NOT archival cardboard.
My only point is that once the stale old bags were dispersed in the 60s and 70s, those coins had 50 years of sitting in other environments that would lead to more, possibly interesting toning that wouldn't happen in the 1st 50 years in the vault bags.
I should also point out that I am one of those people that think it is tricky to draw a clear line between AT and NT. I think Ricko said it best when he said AT stands for "accelerated toning" rather than artificial. In some sense, ALL album toning is artificial and ALL album toning is natural.
One dealer has a full case of vibrant Morganesque Peace Dollar toners for big money asks.
Latin American Collection
The above "bag stories" were probably from more than 30 years ago - more than enough time for a fair number of the Peace Dollars to have toned naturally (and even attractively), both in and out of bags.
In the case of Morgan dollars - I have searched through a few bags over the years and I'd gladly take the other side of this bet, even I had to give large odds: "The toners weren't that easy to find back in the day when they were $8 or 10 a coin. If I would have saved every coin I saw, I bet it wouldn't have been much more than 100 or 200 coins out of the 10 million."
Edited to add - Looking again at the quote from Mr. Hall, it appears contradictory to me. On one hand, it says "I've bought and sold so many 1000 coin bags of dollars it's amazing." and "When fresh, original $1000 (1000 coin) bags were available, there were usually some great toners in the bags, and occasionally some really wild ones." But on the other, it says "The toners weren't that easy to find back in the day when they were $8 or 10 a coin. If I would have saved every coin I saw, I bet it wouldn't have been much more than 100 or 200 coins out of the 10 million." I can't reconcile that.
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
theres just something about it that I just prefer to stay away from. jmo
I felt the same way, but I'll let him come here and defend his comments. I don't think that's the only place where he said that the number of nice toners in a bag was very small.
Looking again at the quote from Mr. Hall...........................
Mark, I think if there were an over/under estimation by HRH it probably isn't the 100-200 really nice toners he seems to settle on, it's more likely the number of coins, his extimate being 10 million. I will assume that he wasn't saying he had searched that many coins in bags, but that many coins overall that he had looked at.
seen another way, 10 million coins is 10,000 bags of 1,000 coins each --- or --- one bag of Dollars every day for 27 years!!!
Could be that he is calling opening groups of bags at once as just "bags"
"When fresh, original $1000 (1000 coin) bags were available, there were usually some great toners in the [groups of(?)] bags, and occasionally some really wild ones."
This would make more sense in the context I think. I'd be surprised if he just dealt one bag at a time every time. Maybe, just a thought.
Collector, occasional seller