Tag Archives: PCI

Authentic v. Doctored Toning

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Rainbow toned coins sell for multitudes more than retail values for the same mint and date, making them both idea for collecting and doctoring. The ability to tell the difference is vital. Otherwise you risk being fooled by artificial patina.

This 1884-O Morgan dollar recently sold at Heritage for $1,680 with a current asking price of $1,950. At MS66, the same coin without patina retails for $450.

Because of profit, coin doctors have devised all manner of fake toning techniques, including baking a coin wedged in a potato or cauliflower, storing a coin in a container with hardboiled eggs, heating it with a blow torch, leaving it in a mixture sulfur powder and petroleum jelly, dabbing it with bleach and even dousing it in cat urine (yuck).

The result usually is an artificial tone of yellow, burnt orange, blue and magenta hues, as in this coin:

Applying the right amount of heat can mute those colors in more believable hues of gold, red, blue and magenta, as in this coin below, which has a reasonable chance of being slabbed by a holdering company:

Because coin doctors are improving their toning skills, major holdering companies often are reluctant now to slab a rainbow coin with a numerical grade, questioning patina.

This coin came from an old album but was dubbed questionable by PCGS:

Album Toning

Certain vintage albums such as Wayte Raymond or Meghrig typically tone coins with natural patina over time. But if you don’t know artificial from genuine toning, you may be stuck with a sulfured coin like this from a seller who uses the brand name in his listing:

Compare the difference between a Morgan dollar toned in such an album and the above artificial one:

Vintage commercial and cardboard holders often color coins over time in vivid patinas as might be found in year sets, double mint sets, and Tidy House and American Savings boards. The issue here concerns unscrupulous sellers who swap out coins, taking the naturally toned ones and replacing them with doctored ones, as in this example:

Proxiblog has an article about sellers who swap out coins from 1947-58 double mint sets. Click here for that. Here’s an example from that post:

Often a holder label may contain chemicals that interact over years with the metal of a coin. Older PCI holdered coins tone beautifully in this manner. The brand has become synonymous with bright patina. Newer PCI holders count on your inability to distinguish real from fake color, as in these examples:

I have spent decades assembling a PCGS toned set across denominations. I purchased them from these holders, sets, rolls, albums and cases:

To view my 100-coin showcase, recently sold at GreatCollections, or the image to see TrueView pictures of my coins, see the photo below or open this YouTube video.

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Proxiblog also has thousands of followers on Facebook Coin Groups, YouTube and social media. To get the latest discussion and commentary, be sure to friend us by clicking here.

You can find more information about types, varieties, errors, grading, bidding and buying in Coin News Updated: The Essential Guide to Online Bidding. Please consider buying or gifting the work for a friend, as it underwrites this hobbyist blog. Thank you.

Which holdering company should you use?

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Grading is expensive. If you don’t know how to grade coins, buying coins top-tier will be your best bet. If you want to send you coins to a company, though, you had better know the various companies and which ones to avoid.

Each holdering company has its own rules, but two stand out with their grades so consistent that they were considered sight-unseen buys in the pre-internet era. Those are PCGS and NGC.

TOP TIER

My favorite for U.S. coins is PCGS because of its spectacular TrueView photos and set registries. Here’s one from a coin in my bank box, an MS68 1990 American Silver Eagle that looks like a flag, primarily because it was stored in corrugated cardboard.

NGC grades as consistently as PCGS. I use it for ancients. There is no better grading service for that. This, too, is in my bank box. (Never keep valuable coins in your house, even if you have a safe.)

Both PCGS and NGC have shortcomings, but I always recommend the two if you are considering grading. Click here for PCGS. Click here for NGC.

CAC (see photo below) is as consistent or even more so than NGC and PCGS. But it’s new to the grading game as it initially was founded as a fourth-party grading company, in essence, affirming (or not) grades of PCGS and NGC. One drawback concerns those assembling a set of PCGS or NGC to compete in registry sets. CAC is not there yet but will be in time.

SECOND TIER

Second-tier reliable grading companies include ANACS and ICG. ANACS coins in my view are close to PCGS/NGC in grading. ICG, less reliable.

Older ANACS holders sometimes are rigorously graded, as in this one:

Here is an 1878-S MS64 by ICG (I say MS63 at PCGS):

THIRD TIER

A few other holdering companies are hit-and-miss with a tendency to overstate grades and to overlook flaws. Nevertheless, they are somewhat reliable. I place them in a third tier. Those are old green and yellow PCI holders and SEGS and Numistrust holders. See below. I always look at these coins at auction and rely on my grading ability to affirm their grades. Personally, I like SEGS the best but have spotted common flaws on some of its coins, including pin scratches. So again I inspect rigorously.

BOTTOM TIER

These are some holdering companies I skip right over, not wasting time, because the grades are usually inflated and flaws, overlooked: SCG, National Numismatic Certification, newer PCI, PGA.

Here are examples:

JUST MY OPINION

Keep in mind that this post is based on my opinion and experience. You may think differently, experience different results, and even prefer lower tiers to PCGS and NGC.

But here is a warning if you are buying coins housed in these lower holders: Do not look up the year/date/mint mark on the PCGS or NGC values sites. All grading companies use the Sheldon 70 scale, but different grading standards mean different values. Read this post about that.

If you like posts like this, subscribe so you can be informed whenever there is a new article or column.

Proxiblog also has thousands of followers on Facebook Coin Groups, YouTube and other social media. To get the latest discussion and commentary, be sure to friend us by clicking here.

You can find more information about types, varieties, errors, grading, bidding and buying in Coin News Updated: The Essential Guide to Online Bidding. Please consider buying or gifting the work for a friend, as it underwrites this hobbyist blog. Thank you.