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Image Post: A GSAGUY Morgan
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I just got this beauty in mail today from GSAGUY. And I must say that his coins are surpassed only by his generosity and sincere desire to help his fellow coin collectors attain greater knowledge within this truly great hobby. Bryan, thank you very much.
Edited to add: The obverse is white, well struck, clean and slightly doubled.
Edited to add: The obverse is white, well struck, clean and slightly doubled.
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What I found really interesting about this piece (1878-S) was that it appears to display both mint bag and album-type toning. Interestingly, shortly after buying the coin, Bill sent me a scan of another of his toned 1878 Morgans and it too displayed a similar combination of patterns.
Personally, I think the topic deserves a bit more research.
Bill, why don't you post that other pic in this thread so we can do a comparison?
GSAGUY
Here it is.
It also has really nice doubling on both the obverse and reverse.
The second Morg, the 78-P may be envelope tone as well as the blue line going from "S" in PLURIBUS down across the head may be a line from a crease or flap as well. It may well be album tone as the untoned areas on the rev was clearly cause by a greasy fingerprint where a collector possibly pushed it into an album.
I say "can" because a coin can look infinitely different depending on the color of the light, the intensity of the light and the direction of the light in relation to the surfaces of the coin. Furthermore, there is the variable of the size of the light source. For example, the smaller the source, the more the imperfections are shown - halogen light having harsh qualities (good for identifying microscopic hairlines) whereas florescent light does the opposite.
Anyway, the photographs above have cues. The cues of the first is the color of the intercept shield frame, if i'm not mistaken as well as luminescent qualities of the baby blue and the cobalt green and orange. It seems that the coin was illuminated from the right side, my suspicions are, with early or late natural light.
The second coin's white of the ngc plastic also provides cues. It too was illuminated from the right side and seemingly with natural light.
My suspicions are that the source was natural light because the surface imperfections are not pronounced.
As far as the etiology of the toning, the toning on the first coin looks to me like bag toning. Most envelope and wayte raymond holdered coins do not get magentas and cobalt blues. However, i suspect that there weren't too many flat breasted eagle coins in bags.
The second looks like it was envelope toned and later Wayte Raymond holdered but improperly handled probably on several occasions.
The toning of the second coin was interrupted on the high points and in the open areas of the fields. The sweat from the fingers interferred with what would have been a sheet of color across the coin. Notice the numerous parrallel lines - remnants of fingerprints - that exist especially at the perimeter of the untoned areas especially on the reverse. (It's hard to grasp a coin improperly on just one side.) I think it caused a neat configuration. The number of different colors present is also cool.
Anyway, just a few thoughts.