A good definition of AT for nervous eBay buyers
laurentyvan
Posts: 4,243 ✭✭✭
This was a response I made to a prospective eBay buyer who was checking out one of my store items. He had asked if I thought the toning was AT or NT on my store item #250074041166 item. I'm not altogether satisfied with my answer to him and I was wondering if the forum couldn't arrive at a definition of AT that would be a satisfactory to eBay email inquiries.
"Dear________, I dislike artificial toners immensely.
Artificial colors tend to lay on top of a coin, almost like paint.
Artificially-toned coins rarely exhibit small color breaks (in kindred colors, pattern, and intensity) within a uniformly toned surface. Artificial toning usually tends towards the extreme, i.e. combinations of four or five colors... and almost always in a full or partial rainbow pattern while natural toning tends towards 1, 2, sometimes 3 colors, and look like they're part of the skin, as opposed to laying on top of it.
You'll tend to have a predominant color or two in naturally toned coins which will usually wax and wane in intensity while leaving room for other colors within the whole.
Artificial colors tend to drench and cover almost every detail, raised device or not,
while natural toning will sometimes skip some of the raised devices (like it did on this 10 sen- leaving the dragon almost purely silver-colored),
or perhaps only affect the raised devices (I recently sold a Bermuda silver-dollar sized coin with exactly that look) while leaving the field surfaces untoned."
I made other comments in regards to the coin in question but what I wonder is: could we come up with a uniform definition of what AT "appears to be" for a newbie or prospective buyer?
It would help me a great deal to be accurate in regards to these kinds of questions which I receive more and more lately...
ed for spl
"Dear________, I dislike artificial toners immensely.
Artificial colors tend to lay on top of a coin, almost like paint.
Artificially-toned coins rarely exhibit small color breaks (in kindred colors, pattern, and intensity) within a uniformly toned surface. Artificial toning usually tends towards the extreme, i.e. combinations of four or five colors... and almost always in a full or partial rainbow pattern while natural toning tends towards 1, 2, sometimes 3 colors, and look like they're part of the skin, as opposed to laying on top of it.
You'll tend to have a predominant color or two in naturally toned coins which will usually wax and wane in intensity while leaving room for other colors within the whole.
Artificial colors tend to drench and cover almost every detail, raised device or not,
while natural toning will sometimes skip some of the raised devices (like it did on this 10 sen- leaving the dragon almost purely silver-colored),
or perhaps only affect the raised devices (I recently sold a Bermuda silver-dollar sized coin with exactly that look) while leaving the field surfaces untoned."
I made other comments in regards to the coin in question but what I wonder is: could we come up with a uniform definition of what AT "appears to be" for a newbie or prospective buyer?
It would help me a great deal to be accurate in regards to these kinds of questions which I receive more and more lately...
ed for spl
One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics
is that you end up being governed by inferiors. – Plato
is that you end up being governed by inferiors. – Plato
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I wasn't clear perhaps about what I was asking for.
I am looking for a consesus opinion on what an appropriate description of an AT vs NT coin might be, i.e., description of appearance vs any kind of a judgement as to whether or not a particular coin is or isn't.
is that you end up being governed by inferiors. – Plato
"Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you." -Luke 11:9
"Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD: And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might." -Deut. 6:4-5
"For the LORD is our judge, the LORD is our lawgiver, the LORD is our king; He will save us." -Isaiah 33:22