Why is some surface damage good?

Greetings Collectors,

Having just received submissions back from NGC and having a "negative" body count at #6, I have been doing some research and studying on the effects, positive and negative, to a coins surface. I have not cleaned or altered a coins surface in more years than I can remember. When I was brand new to numismatics I can remember taking a pencil eraser and polishing a beat up Indian head or Lincoln cent or various other silver coins and thinking, wow! "look what I am able to do in improving the eye appeal of that coin. Today I "shudder" at the very rememberance of a deed such as that. Keep in mind I was maybe in second or third grade. Today I participate in quite a few auctions, more than I care to admit to and I watch common MS 64 Morgan dollars and Franklin halves sell for sometimes 5-10 times the going price if they have multiple colors. Now while I have seen some "monster" color coins that are quite "breathtaking and attractive" I personally would never pluck down the funds these "rainbow" coins bring.

I get several weekly and monthly coin publications and have re-read some letters to the editor and other articles and wanted to share some thoughts with you all.

Take for example, you have two collectors who buy a raw untoned 1878-CC Morgan dollar, both MS 63 accurately graded. One stores his coin in a protective holder thus keeping out the hydrogen sulfide gas. The other puts his coin in a drawer with various paper products containing and giving off sulfur. Then a few years later both decide to sell their coins and they send them off to the same grading company. The first collector gets his back with a MS 63 grade and collector #2 now has a coin with "Peter Max" red, purple and blue toning all over. His coin comes back MS 65. The collector who took steps to protect his coin gets $450 and #2 gets $2500. The question is how a coin which has undergone "surface oxidation" from silver sulfide and thus has damage or "chemical wear" be a "gradable" coin when one that has been laying on the sea floor in saltwater not a "gradable" coin. As I understand it, it too has "chemical wear" or "damage" same as the coin left in a "paper filled" drawer.

I guess my question is why, a coin damaged from "air" is any differant from a coin damaged from saltwater (shipwreck effect?)

There are others who say that "toned coins" are not graded but rather priced in a way known as "market grading". The Official ANA Grading Standards for US Coins, 6th edition has no mention of "market grading". I do not use any such grading rules either.

In my opinion a toned coin, full of color or "drab gray" hides a multitude of "sin", while a "brilliant" white coin shows all, flaws and otherwise. I currently have brilliant white coins (my favorite) and I have some beautiful colors in several of my Franklin halves and Morgan dollars.

Having said all that, the coins I got back from NGC in body bags having been deemed "ungradable" seems unfair. Their sufaces have been altered/damaged in much the same way a "sulfur poisoned" coin has, yet the latter is not only "gradable" but worth many times over. And to top it all off these two coins in question looked "damn nice" and up until 10 minutes before they went into the box to be shipped to NGC, they had resided, one in an "old style" Anacs holder and the other in an ICG holder. I would like to think the folks at these two grading companys have fairly keen "numismatic eyes". What did NGC see that I or the other two graders missed? Sometimes I feel like I am "blind in one eye and can't see out of the other".

This whole ordeal kinda makes one think that the best route to take would be to crack out all my brilliant white untoned coins from their holders and stash them in a drawer with several thousand pages from old books and magazines from the "forties" and let them "cook" for a couple of years.

Since most of my collection is still "raw" I am going to make a point of putting several dozen quarters, halves and dollars in a drawer in the enviroment just mentioned. Heck it can't hurt. Maybe it will create a whole new revenue stream in the future so I can "further my chronic addiction" in this "hobby of kings".

Anyway here's wishing a great, safe coin collecting weekend to all of you. Happy Collecting! WKF