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How do you define Eye Appeal on an untoned circulated coin?
drddm
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I think the answers should be very interesting.
Happy New Year everyone!
Dave
2
Comments
So you believe toning equates to eye appeal then?
Dave
I look for a few things:
-No major distractions
-no spots
-minimal hits/no scratches
-circulated cameo look
Depends on the series... For coins like Morgans I like sharp strikes, frost and no bag marks the best.
To me any toning detracts from a coin. The more toned, the more unsightly.
Maybe it's just me but unless a circulated coin is AU or so, I don't consider circulated coins to have toning, only potentially tarnish.
I see toning as something that occurs on original surfaces.
As for eye appeal, if it looks nice to my eyes then it has appeal (to me).
What specifically about a circulated coin do YOU consider appealing to your eyes?
Depending upon the grade, remaining luster, if applicable, can have an effect, as can cleanliness/smoothness of surfaces and evenness in wear. Also, even though untoned, a circulated coin can still display variations in color, such as light or dark silver/grey (for silver coins) or tan/brown (for copper coins).
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
Anything free of the nasty is typically ok in my book, however I prefer MS coins with nice cartwheel luster and usually avoid circs.
If the price is right I will sometimes buy toners but thank god the Weimans is able to reverse the damage. On a circ I am still looking for clean fields, no spots or crud, sharp stike etc.
The whole worlds off its rocker, buy Gold™.
BOOMIN!™
Wooooha! Did someone just say it's officially "TACO™" Tuesday????
Retiring at 55, what day is today?
I look for some luster.
Clean and even surfaces with color consistent with honest use.
I like an even gunmetal grey look on "untoned" circulated silver. Blast white circulated silver looks unnatural to me, and the older the coin, the more unnatural it looks. Beyond that, it's hard to define eye appeal precisely, but like the famous quote about pornography, I know it when I see it.
Funny but NOT funny.
So is my first thought for a reply" "I know it when I see it!" Also, not funny.
I think your opinion would be very important to read. Perhaps, you'll go first?
PS OP, what a terrific
question!!!
For me - would need to be in the AU range and have a good bit of mint luster.
So, you've never seen a very attractive AG coin?
Well - I'm not sure I'd call it "eye appealing" as per the OP questions - but maybe still desirable for other reasons (rarity, etc).
Unless it is barely circulated, an untoned circ rarely has positive eye appeal to me. They generally just look cleaned, because they were.
Beauty is always in the eye of the beholder. I don't really think you can quantify it.
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I suppose context is a little important here. If we're talking about 19th century issues, any circulated, completely white coin will likely have severely negative eye appeal to me. I'm talking about freshly dipped Capped Bust Halves or Bust dollars, for example. They just don't look right no matter what other attributes the coin has.
Now, if we're talking Walkers and Peace dollars, that's a little different. Still, almost all circulated examples will show at least a little patina. Here's an example:
This coin isn't what most would consider to be a toner, but there is obvious patina and a bit of circulation "grime". I see even wear (+), good rims (+), no distracting marks (+), nice detail (+), and a bit of luster in protected areas (+). To me it has positive eye appeal. It's solid, and welcome in my circulated Walker collection.
Here's another one:
Again, to me this coin would look terrible if freshly dipped. Most would not consider it to be a toner, but there's actually rather heavy toning. I see even wear (+), a little hit in the hair curl (-), decent detail for grade (neutral), no luster (not really expected in F12), and decent rims. To me, it has mildly positive eye appeal, mostly due to the circulated cameo effect.
One final example:
This is a coin that I could easily part with. It's clean enough (neutral), wear is even (slight +), luster is barely worthy of an AU grade (-), strike is just OK (neutral to slight -), and there's nothing wrong with it....... but there's nothing right with it either. It's just a coin but doesn't really have much character or soul. If you saw it in a display case, it would be slightly more interesting than the slab it's in.
..... but can't we have just a little color in our circulated coins?????
This question is why there is such a large spread in prices for the same grade with Barber Halves. A nice, gun metal grey coin will sometimes bring double what a light grey dipped one will bring. Many people do not understand that and neither do the price guides!
Edit to add....how many nice original midgrade Barber Halves are you guys seeing in auctions lately? Not many from my experience. Most trade privately!
This thread is about eye-appeal. A coin's rarity has nothing to do with its eye appeal. Unfortunately, a coin's design (which should not matter) is an important component of its eye appeal. For example, a typically gray
F-12 Barber 50c with an even-colored, virtually mark-free original surface does not appeal to me at all;
however, a WLH in the same condition would be very attractive to me because of the difference in its design.
Now imagine the same outward description on a G-6 Draped Bust dime. Another beautiful yet low-grade coin.
The people who come up with price guide prices probably do understand. However, guides typically list a price, not a price range. So realistically, there is no way they can accurately value both low end/unappealing and high end/appealing examples, simultaneously.
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
For me it really depends on the series and what makes sense given the coins age and amount of wear. BryceM's post above is a perfect example... the 1806 HE quarter is beautiful to me. It wouldn't be if, at F12, it was blast white. A coin that circulated to that extent should have a bit of grime on it. The '53 A&R Half is off-the-charts eye appeal
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That’s cool - it’s a personal preference type of thing. As you say - “would be very attractive to me”. But not necessarily to me.
Maybe so but there should be some middle ground! There are many examples out there I wouldn't buy, even if they were 1/2 of greysheet! On the other hand there are others I would pay more than any guide out there...sometimes multiples! I just can not understand some of the guide prices when there is a solid track record of prices realized!
Read your own words. The price guide prices are the “middle ground”.
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
Eye appeal is in the eye of the beholder. The same things appeal to each person differently.
So, eye appeal is a little like pornography, I can’t always define it but I know it when I see it.
A: The year they spend more on their library than their coin collection.
A numismatist is judged more on the content of their library than the content of their cabinet.
One of these days I'll post my APR's of the over 2,000 PCGS F-AU I've sold to embarrass the price guides. Hopefully when I'm old and crochety enough to do that there will be more than double that!
That won’t embarrass anyone. Just as you shouldn’t be embarrassed by your stated unwillingness to pay even half of grey sheet for some examples. As much as you sound like you want it, you can’t have it both ways at the same time in a single price guide value.
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
Since a picture is worth a thousand words, this AU 50 is the kind of look in circulated silver coins that I find very appealing.
- Jim
Hmmmm, Maybe I should of said most of the inferior coins are the ones that sell at price quide. Challenge...Find me an 01-S in 58 for double price guide...I don't care what it looks like!
Late to the show - do you consider gray 'patina' to be untoned or is such a subset under toning? Grey patina can be very eye appealing on circ coins. Blast white circs, rarely.........
Best, SH
That’s easy
Fabulous cartwheel luster !
I give away money. I collect money.
I don’t love money . I do love the Lord God.
That’s only possible on circulated coins down, grade-wise, to a certain point. What about coins whose grades
don’t include luster?
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
I like this answer best. I think everyone's answer is different. But you have a clear sense of what you like and it is coherent and easy to understand.
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
Original surfaces
No mottled toning , no spots nicks or dings if any any kind
Just gently aging
I give away money. I collect money.
I don’t love money . I do love the Lord God.
It's so subjective.
I want it to be PRETTY to ME. LOL.
That sometimes means excellent details for the grade with a natural-looking surface. It sometimes means "character". Sometimes it means a patina that highlights some design element.
Sometimes, I dislike the design so much that it will never have "eye appeal" to me.
Is the issue supposed to be individual eye appeal or a professional grader's interpretation of eye appeal?
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
@oldUScoins said: "That’s cool - it’s a personal preference type of thing. As you say - “would be very attractive to me”. But not necessarily to me."
Then I'll change my post: IT SHOULD BE MORE ATTRACTIVE TO ANY NUMISMATIST.
Eye appeal is a matter of an acquired "eye." It has NOTHING to do with value. It should also have nothing to do with the design but I believe that is a harder thing to put out of our mind.
Each level of grade from 1 to 70 has coins with great eye appeal for what they are. I'm sorry to disagree but if we lined up a group of coins in various grades and let a group of PROFESSIONAL NUMISMATISTS who make their living buying coins rate them by eye appeal, I'll guarantee the coins with eye appeal (for what they are) would be universally singled out! So you see, the more YOUR/OUR/MY opinion of eye appeal matches theirs - the better. The coin's grade does not matter.
Or you can be like Ricko and hate toning. Or hate any coin below AU. There is nothing wrong with that either.
My thoughts are as follows:
Must see coins in person.
Happy New Year, all;
I too am late to this thread, so I thank BryceM for expressing my thoughts exactly.
In silver, my grade targets are VF30-xf45. I won't consider a coin unless it has an original medium silvery--gray color over the entire surface. (stress on original). Now here is a coin of mine that I like very much:
I think it would be better to assess eye appeal instead of defining it because eye appeal by itself can be defined as visual attractiveness. So when presented with a circulated coin you would assess its degree of visual attractiveness.
Nice coin, but take away the grunge line around the devices and the darker areas around the letters and other hard to access areas and you've taken away the contrast and end up with a very blah looking coin.
Not sure I get your point. If you strip the paint off the Mona Lisa, you end up with a white canvas. So don't do that.
I don’t know why, but that reply is perfect!
the ideal coin looks like it was circulated, then preserved.
For circulated XF silver, this is the 'perfect' look to me. There other other ways a circulated coin can look nice too, but just not blast white.
10-4,
My Instagram picturesErik
My registry sets
It's interesting that the ....posted.....examples are....toned.
I think Baijerfan (5 posts up) was taking my comment about surface color beyond my intentions. The grunge of which he speaks is a foregone conclusion in the protected areas of an original coin in the indicated grade range. In my experience, to require otherwise on an original coin would be to acquire practically nothing at all.
Whit
Because to me that's what gives the coin the eye appeal that I like. If the coin is 100% dull gray in appearance it's not a keeper nor even a consideration for me.
Even coloring, nicely outlined design details for those details that remain, a little luster where appropriate for the grade, no spots, no stains, no blotches, no distracting marks. It would be the coin you would use to show a novice how to grade.
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars • Variety Attribution
I have a very good imagination. I can see the coins I describe.