Baldwins of St. James's 9

[jasonsewell]

sometimes grading better after conservation  false economy.

[VickySilver]

Minor point:  I believe one of the bluing culprits is the brand "MS70" for sale in the USA at one time.

[Rob]

36 minutes ago, VickySilver said:

Minor point:  I believe one of the bluing culprits is the brand "MS70" for sale in the USA at one time.

So by making the coin blue, you improve the coin to a state of perfection? Shurely shome mishtake. 

[PWA 1967]

3 minutes ago, Rob said:

So by making the coin blue, you improve the coin to a state of perfection? Shurely shome mishtake. 

Quite clever that one Rob....even i got it 

[Sword]

3 hours ago, Rob said:

I presume the blue colour below is what you are referring to. 1826 halfpenny slabbed MS63 with unbelievable toning, that, not in the sense of the spectacular. It has to be due to either their 'conservation' service, or some proprietary toning agent

I hope it wasn't done by PCGS as they explicitly states that they will never add toning to a coin during their "restoration service".

[oldcopper]

Rob, it seems to me that in the PCGS secret rulebook, the bluer the coin, the higher the grade, so perhaps MS70's not too wide of the mark!

It's ridiculous, their "expert" graders should be smelling a rat about all these iridescent blue coins suddenly appearing out of nowhere. Conveniently, most slabs have no provenances and the grader is anonymous, so it's a perfect system for making a coin untraceable. And of course it's a commercial operation and Atlas are probably good customers.

Sword, I wouldn't have thought PCGS do any of this toning themselves (I may be mistaken), but I think a good comparison is to money launderers - they don't do the crime but they facilitate the rewards for it.

 

[Rob]

The 1826 was in a NGC 63 slab

[oldcopper]

There's probably not much difference - I've noticed many in PCGS recently, but they are also in NGC. I made the mistake of buying a George IV Irish proof penny and halfpenny nearly three years ago, both with a beautifully blue or blue/green sheen. However, I then discovered the penny (1823) was from the Strickland Neville Rolfe Baldwin's 2010 sale, thanks to Sixbid's modern coin archives (free then now unfortunately a hefty subscription), and back then it was a lustrous matt orange currency. What impressed and worried me was how all the tiny field areas within the design ie harp were all glitteringly brilliant as well as the main fields whereas the raised surfaces were matt, to all intents and purposes a very convincing proof effect.

I sold both at a substantial loss, they'd lost their allure for me when I realized. It's a learning curve.....

[oldcopper]

Sorry, I should have mentioned both were in NGC slabs...

[Peckris]

23 hours ago, jaggy said:

 With $80 software (e.g. Photoshop Elements) it is very easy to 'doctor' a photo without actually touching the coin itself.

Not to mention removing dinks and scratches as if by 'magic'.