Defining AT: Intent
JoeLewis
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Suppose a person stores his coins, and after a certain period of time the coins have toned. Are the coins considered AT based on whether the person meant for the coins to tone? In otherwords, if the person, upon taking his coins out of storage is surprised that the coins have now toned, then are the coins considered NT?
US and British coin collector, and creator of The Ultimate Chuck E. Cheese's and Showbiz Pizza Place Token & Ticket Guide
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There is just market acceptable and non-market acceptable
and that varies depending how big a sucker you have on your hook.
The yahoos that purposely "experiment" with coins to create toning is IT/AT.
<< <i>Very good point. The way I see it is some don't know a wittman album will tone coins after a period of time. To me AT should be renamed IT for intentional toning. Some coins will tone over time and some wount. Depends on how they are stored. In a basement,safe deposit box or in a cardboard box on a concrete slab house floor. Some don't have much of a choice as to where they can store coins.
The yahoos that purposely "experiment" with coins to create toning is IT/AT. >>
If intent turns out to be the only determing factor (which I think it is,) then nobody other than the original owner (doctor
US and British coin collector, and creator of The Ultimate Chuck E. Cheese's and Showbiz Pizza Place Token & Ticket Guide
<< <i>
<< <i>Very good point. The way I see it is some don't know a wittman album will tone coins after a period of time. To me AT should be renamed IT for intentional toning. Some coins will tone over time and some wount. Depends on how they are stored. In a basement,safe deposit box or in a cardboard box on a concrete slab house floor. Some don't have much of a choice as to where they can store coins.
The yahoos that purposely "experiment" with coins to create toning is IT/AT. >>
If intent turns out to be the only determing factor (which I think it is,) then nobody other than the original owner (doctor
No, the coins age and surface can give hints of IT/AT or NT.
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<< <i>Very good point. The way I see it is some don't know a wittman album will tone coins after a period of time. To me AT should be renamed IT for intentional toning. Some coins will tone over time and some wount. Depends on how they are stored. In a basement,safe deposit box or in a cardboard box on a concrete slab house floor. Some don't have much of a choice as to where they can store coins.
The yahoos that purposely "experiment" with coins to create toning is IT/AT. >>
If intent turns out to be the only determing factor (which I think it is,) then nobody other than the original owner (doctor
No, the coins age and surface can give hints of IT/AT or NT. >>
I think you are missing my point. How can you possible tell (no matter what the surfaces look like) whether I stored a coin in an envelope to intentionally tone it, or whether I stored it in the envelope because I thought that would make a good way to store my coins, and one day I pull my coin out to look at it and OMG the coin has toned? Try to write a sentence longer than that!
US and British coin collector, and creator of The Ultimate Chuck E. Cheese's and Showbiz Pizza Place Token & Ticket Guide
<< <i>This hobby is insane in smoe respects. People pay huge premiums for coins just because they sat in an envelope and no longer look like they did when they were minted. It's crazy if you stop and think about it. >>
some would say it's crazy if not stupid to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars for a quarter.
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<< <i>This hobby is insane in smoe respects. People pay huge premiums for coins just because they sat in an envelope and no longer look like they did when they were minted. It's crazy if you stop and think about it. >>
some would say it's crazy if not stupid to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars for a quarter.
So is that argument that we're all crazy but some are crazier than others
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<< <i>This hobby is insane in smoe respects. People pay huge premiums for coins just because they sat in an envelope and no longer look like they did when they were minted. It's crazy if you stop and think about it. >>
some would say it's crazy if not stupid to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars for a quarter.
Probably, but they aren't being created. The numbers of a specific date/mintmark don't change.
Saying all intentionaly toning is artificial would be wrong. That is like making fresh squeezed orange huice, but then saying that it is not real OJ
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<< <i>Very good point. The way I see it is some don't know a wittman album will tone coins after a period of time. To me AT should be renamed IT for intentional toning. Some coins will tone over time and some wount. Depends on how they are stored. In a basement,safe deposit box or in a cardboard box on a concrete slab house floor. Some don't have much of a choice as to where they can store coins.
The yahoos that purposely "experiment" with coins to create toning is IT/AT. >>
If intent turns out to be the only determing factor (which I think it is,) then nobody other than the original owner (doctor
No, the coins age and surface can give hints of IT/AT or NT. >>
I think you are missing my point. How can you possible tell (no matter what the surfaces look like) whether I stored a coin in an envelope to intentionally tone it, or whether I stored it in the envelope because I thought that would make a good way to store my coins, and one day I pull my coin out to look at it and OMG the coin has toned? Try to write a sentence longer than that! >>
No not missing any point.(hows that for a long sentence)lol
In that instance no, no one can tell. I'm not saying one can tell 100% if a coin is IT/AT. But you seem to think no one can ever tell if any coin is IT/AT. But if you gave me an 07 penny that had rainbow toning on both sides I'd say yes it's IT/AT. Toning is simply oxidation on a metals surface. If it is enhanced intentionally it's IT/AT.
<< <i>artificial toning: Coloring added to the surface of a coin by chemicals and/or heat. Many different methods have been employed over the years >>
<< <i>Here's the PCGS definition:
<< <i>artificial toning: Coloring added to the surface of a coin by chemicals and/or heat. Many different methods have been employed over the years >>
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notice there is NO definition for "natural toning"? (because ALL toning is "questionable")
don't believe it?.............crack any toned coin out of a pcgs holder and re-submit 10 different times....bet i comes back a significant number of times in a BB.
There are many ways in which coins tone naturally (market acceptable), ie in an album and you can easily identify those pieces, in a mint bag (again, easy to identify), in a paper envelope, etc. Just baking a coin or blowtorching it or dunking it in sulfur will usually not mimic these easily identifiable toning patterns. However, the tricky part comes into play when a coin toned naturally (without intent) in a manner so unusual as to not be identifiable as album toning, textile toning, etc. It may have sat untouched in a forest on an oak log for 5 decades, or maybe it sat in a jar of matchbooks for several years, or maybe it fell into a puddle of oil at a car shop and was discovered years later when the shop closed--and those coins will look suspect, even though according to "intent" theorists they are perfectly market acceptable. So you can't just judge a coin by it's toning pattern, because you will exempt perfectlly natural coins from the process if you do.
Many have told me (after I freely gave up the information that I had doctored a coin) that my toners are "obvious, poorly done ATs", however some of the coins I have claimed to have AT'd I did not, and likewise I have not admitted to ATing some that I actually did. I think it is interesting to see people make up a million reasons why a KNOWN AT'd coin is unacceptable and make up a similar list of a million reasons why a coin they beleive is NT is market acceptable, even though it really isn't. The truth is, there's no such thing as a "horrible AT job", because toning is toning, all toning is real, and what it boils down to is: Is it attractive or not? People pay moon money for things they believe to be rare and unduplicated. They're terrified of paying moon money for a coin they know to be doctored because they know it can just be created again and again... thus rendering any premium they paid null and void. But that's the reality of the situation, all premiums for toners is money poorly spent, because it can and it will be duplicated--any kind of toning you can invent, it can be done. So those that invested in toners thinking they were outsmarting the dippers just played right back into the doctor's hands. It is not the doctor that creates this market, it is the outrageous prices Americans spend on American coins. I don't see this happening nearly as much for true rarities across the pond. Maybe this hobby needs a market crash. A reality check. Something to jolt everyone back down to planet earth.
and it sets us apart from practitioners and consultants. Gregor
<< <i>If you intend to make a coin tone and, instead, it stays brilliantly white, is it AT? >>
Yes; that would be Attempted Toning and anyone who has been in the hobby for more than a week can figger that out.
The grading services are noncommittal on the topic. If a coin [in the grader's experience] does not resemble what they feel it should look like after storage in a bag, album or envelope then its likely to get BB'd for questionable color. I do wonder tho if they confer or consult other experts on some of these.
<< <i>Here's the PCGS definition:
<< <i>artificial toning: Coloring added to the surface of a coin by chemicals and/or heat. Many different methods have been employed over the years >>
>>
Chemicals...as in sulfur in the air. What if a person lives near a facility htta dumps a lot of sulfur in the air. Are they At'ing their coins?
Heat...as in 110 degree F? What if a person lives near the equator? Are they At'ing their coins?
That definition is purposefully vague. I'm beginning to understand the intent is the only defining factor. If so, then nobody can know for sure whether a coin is AT or NT.
US and British coin collector, and creator of The Ultimate Chuck E. Cheese's and Showbiz Pizza Place Token & Ticket Guide
I agree it's not practical.
At the end of the day, no matter how we define the terms, we're still left with nothing but a coin to look at to determine (or, more likely, guess) the process by which it became toned. We can say what processes are acceptable and which are not; but, without some evidence beyond the coin itself, there will always be some doubt about which process was used.
<< <i>storage in a manner traditionally accepted by numismatists. >>
To me, "traditionally accepted" means we're already talking about "market acceptability," not natural vs. artificial in an objective manner.
Of course we're talking about "market acceptability," i.e., what's acceptable and what's not. You're using the concept (whether you realize it or not) when you differentiate "artificial" and "natural" toning. I don't know why people have such an adverse reaction to the term.
My proposed definition is as objective as it gets. It focuses on the process as opposed to the intent that underlies the process. "Intent" can't be part of the definition because (1) it's impossible to determine, and (2) it doesn't really matter. Album toning is largely regarded as "natural" and "market acceptable." Why should it matter whether or not the person who placed the coins in an album intended them to tone?
<< <i>My proposed definition is as objective as it gets. It focuses on the process as opposed to the intent that underlies the process. "Intent" can't be part of the definition because (1) it's impossible to determine, and (2) it doesn't really matter. Album toning is largely regarded as "natural" and "market acceptable." Why should it matter whether or not the person who placed the coins in an album intended them to tone? >>
I agree intent cannot be used to define AT.
If your definition as objective as it gets, I would have to agree with the people that say "there is no artificial and natural toning, only market acceptability" and we should stop using the terms AT/NT.
I wouldn't want to sever the tie between what's "market acceptable" and the means by which a coin toned. "Market acceptability" is a conclusion that reflects a judgment on the process by which the toning occurred.
Now I'm in trouble with Pharmer because I edited my post to make it clearer.
<< <i>99% of the time you don't really know process by which the coin toned >>
I don't know about percentages; but, as I said in my first post to this thread: "At the end of the day, no matter how we define the terms, we're still left with nothing but a coin to look at to determine (or, more likely, guess) the process by which it became toned. We can say what processes are acceptable and which are not; but, without some evidence beyond the coin itself, there will always be some doubt about which process was used."
And I agree with you that a coin either looks funny or it doesn't. But some coins "look funny" only in relation to what we think of and accept as "natural toning."
The whole matter is somewhat absurd to me...just like the fictional supposition above...
A coin, which is the creation of human intervention in natural substances, will, over time change unless it is placed in a vacuum...(which would be 'unnatural').
It is, IMO, a matter of aesthetics...either a person likes the way 'it' looks or they don't...much like art...
Take Jackson Pollack (I think his first name was/is Jackson)... anyway... this guy would dribble, drop and splash paint onto canvases... some folks declared it 'genius' and now some of his so-called paintings command over $1,000,000. I wouldn't even want one, except perhaps to resell
There are coins I like and ones I don't... as a collector, that is as it should be ... and as a part-time dealer, I can only hope that the coins I have to offer are coins that some other collector will like.
...I know of someone who recently pulled out a nice BU set of Morgans from a vault where it had been stored for many years... all the coins had magnificent toning... he submitted them... all BB... questionable toning ... once again... paying for an opinion and, heck, everybody has one... and just like the something else we all have... if it ain't clean( or free from bias or alterior motive) it stinks...
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<< <i>99% of the time you don't really know process by which the coin toned >>
I don't know about percentages; but, as I said in my first post to this thread: "At the end of the day, no matter how we define the terms, we're still left with nothing but a coin to look at to determine (or, more likely, guess) the process by which it became toned. We can say what processes are acceptable and which are not; but, without some evidence beyond the coin itself, there will always be some doubt about which process was used."
And I agree with you that a coin either looks funny or it doesn't. But some coins "look funny" only in relation to what we think of and accept as "natural toning." >>
Regarding process: (you did say "guess" which I agree with). About all we can say for most toned coins is that this coin has a toning pattern typical to that seen with storage in a mint bag (or whatever process). Unless you saw it come out of a mint bag, the toning process is uncertain.
Even for a coin that "looks funny" about all I can say is that it has toning typical to that seen with toning of suspicious circumstance.
The problem is that the coins that are treated with chemicals and placed in an oven, or however it's done, are lumped into the market acceptable category with the rest.
<< <i>Lately the AT/NT debate is framed as intentionally duplicating the process that brings about natural toning, such as buying an old album and putting white coins into it. This establishes that it can't be proven whether a coin is NT or AT, because we can't read the mind of the person who put it there. The next step is to say that since we can't know for sure, there is no such thing as AT; there is only market acceptable, which really means if we can get it past the graders and into a slab.
The problem is that the coins that are treated with chemicals and placed in an oven, or however it's done, are lumped into the market acceptable category with the rest. >>
I think one possible solution to this is to create a list of all methods of toning and categorize them, not to make generalized statements. The categories can be something like the following.
(a) stable
(b) accelerated, possibly unstable
I don't think the terms AT and NT are useful so perhaps new terms would be better.
If they're right, they're a hero, if wrong...... let's try something else. BTW, The tires on my truck say "AT" not sure what that's all about.
Hey, I see I made clw54 Sig line. Heh heh
I think I like that summary a lot!
Whats his intent? AT? NT? What if he puts 3 of each incase some tone to a horrid state?
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