What are dealers' views on adding nicely appearing toning to artifically brightened coins? Comments
Longacre
Posts: 16,717 ✭✭✭
Things were a little slow at the office yesterday 
, so I opened up the new QDB Investing in Coins book and took a closer look. I went to the chapter called "Conserving and Protecting Your Collection." In the chapter, there was a section called "Adding Toning to a Coin". In it, QDB writes, "Lightly worn nickel and silver coins are apt to tone to an attractive medium gray--and should be left alone. However, many have been cleaned, giving them the brightness of a freshly minted coin. This is unnatural, and it may be desirable to try to impart toning, although most people don't care. Worn copper coins that have been brightened should be retoned, and some instructions for doing so are included in ... Penny Whimsy. I have no fixed rules for adding nicely appearing toning to artificially brightened coins, except to suggest once again that you experient first, using coins of low value in case something goes wrong. ...My advice in a nutshell: at the outset, cherrypick coins that have good eye appeal. Leave the coin brightening, retoning, and other scenarios to "coin doctors" who have been there, done that, and know the tricks."
Do other dealers generally hold the same view (and what are the views of board members)? Please also note that the above is just an excerpt from the "Adding Toning" section and I don't think I took the overall statement out of context.
, so I opened up the new QDB Investing in Coins book and took a closer look. I went to the chapter called "Conserving and Protecting Your Collection." In the chapter, there was a section called "Adding Toning to a Coin". In it, QDB writes, "Lightly worn nickel and silver coins are apt to tone to an attractive medium gray--and should be left alone. However, many have been cleaned, giving them the brightness of a freshly minted coin. This is unnatural, and it may be desirable to try to impart toning, although most people don't care. Worn copper coins that have been brightened should be retoned, and some instructions for doing so are included in ... Penny Whimsy. I have no fixed rules for adding nicely appearing toning to artificially brightened coins, except to suggest once again that you experient first, using coins of low value in case something goes wrong. ...My advice in a nutshell: at the outset, cherrypick coins that have good eye appeal. Leave the coin brightening, retoning, and other scenarios to "coin doctors" who have been there, done that, and know the tricks."Do other dealers generally hold the same view (and what are the views of board members)? Please also note that the above is just an excerpt from the "Adding Toning" section and I don't think I took the overall statement out of context.
Always took candy from strangers
Didn't wanna get me no trade
Never want to be like papa
Working for the boss every night and day
--"Happy", by the Rolling Stones (1972)
Didn't wanna get me no trade
Never want to be like papa
Working for the boss every night and day
--"Happy", by the Rolling Stones (1972)
0
Comments
It brings to mind my VERY early pre-dealer collecting days. A buddy was putting together a set of Jefferson proofs to put in a Capital plastic holder. He had carefully selected only the BEST. And he was...PICKY.
He finally got his last coin, the 1942 silver proof and brought the batch to my house where over copious amounts of bourbon, he decided to dip ALL the coins so they would "tone" naturally in the holder and thus all be uniform in appearance.
Good plan?
Well, maybe, except that after the clinically exacting dip and careful neutralization in dissolved baking soda, when he asked for a "soft cloth" to ...pat...them on, I found one of my kid's old T-shirts for him.
Good plan?
Well, yes............IF the shirt had not had DECALS on it which neatly transferred themselves to his nickels.
I was out of the room when I heard a roaring exclamation of profanity and the sound of nickels flying helter skelter all over the kitchen. I rushed to the scene to see a drunk numismatist glowering at an empty glass.
(we finally picked em up an redid the process and they all ....fortunately....lost their new decoration.)
Didn't wanna get me no trade
Never want to be like papa
Working for the boss every night and day
--"Happy", by the Rolling Stones (1972)
Knew a pair of guys who started a big operation in late 70's. They were actually out to FLEECE folks. (and did so very successfully. Well, I guess "successfully" is the wrong word but they did take a bunch of folks including a bank trust department and several rubes who bought their 20% ...."GUARANTEED".... return on coins and bullion. Yep...GUARANTEE!
Anyhow when the SHTF and the cops and Interpol got in the mix, one partner was ready to go "states witness" but he committed "suicide" by drinking a quart of NITRIC ACID.
Somehow I don't buy "suicide."
He was the decent guy of the pair. He was also the naive "money guy." The other guy was slick...I mean...SLICK. I don't know if they ever caught up with him.
<< <i>Top-- not a bad story, but at least no one got hurt. I read a story about an old time dealer who was dipping coins in arsenic (?) and was drinking a glass of ginger ale at the same time. The story goes that he got confused and drank what he thought was the ginger ale. He was found dead the next day. Does anyone remember which dealer this was? >>
Last name was Saltus. Don't remember his first name.
Also, I think it was cyanide rather than arsenic.
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value---zero."----Voltaire
"Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."----Voltaire