In determining whether a given coin has "eye appeal," it all depends on the person you ask.
To some, it's a simple matter of taste, but to others, it's so obvious as to have specific requirements and characteristics that a coin must meet.
The fact is, eye appeal is neither that loosely defined nor that strictly determined. The truth lies somewhere in the middle.
A definition
Without getting too far ahead of ourselves, simply put, in determining a coin's grade, eye appeal is the element that "grabs" the viewer. Eye appeal is the overall look of a coin, according to a "coin lingo" guide at the Professional Coin Grading Service Web site.
Coin World columnist Q. David Bowers wrote in an April 9 column this year that, "eye appeal is a matter of opinion, but if a coin appears to be beautiful to your eyes, chances are good that when your collection is sold someday, buyers will feel likewise."
In an earlier column, in the Feb. 5 issue, Bowers provides some questions to ask about a coin to determine its eye appeal. "Is the coin richly lustrous, or is it grainy or ‘greasy' in appearance? Are there stains or spots? Is it dull gray, brown or even black? In a word, is it beautiful? Does it beckon, saying to you, ‘Buy me!' "
Randy Campbell, a grader with ANACS, said eye appeal is sometimes hard to describe, but he knows it when he sees it.
"It's like the Supreme Court justice [Potter Stewart] who said he'd know what pornography was when he saw it. It would fall into that category."
David Hall, president of Collectors Universe, which owns Professional Coin Grading Service, says eye appeal is not a complex issue, and is an almost universal trait. "An old time pattern dealer once told me, he said, ‘David, patterns are very easy to figure out. If they're ugly, people don't want them. If it's pretty, you can buy and sell them and maybe make some money.' Eye appeal is like that."
"There are people who say beauty is in the eye of the beholder. These people would have you believe there's no difference between Angelina Jolie and Whoopi Goldberg," Hall said. "We can all agree on what is pretty, what is beautiful and what is ugly. It's not that complicated."
Michael Fahey, senior numismatist at Independent Coin Grading, says determining eye appeal is not as clear-cut an issue. "That's a rough one. That's something we try to teach at grading class and it's hard," he said. "It's almost something beyond a beginner level."
Rick Montgomery, Numismatic Guaranty Corp. president, views eye appeal in the same manner as Fahey. "That's casting a broad net. It's different for different people," he said. (NGC notes "eye appeal" with a star designation on its coin holders.)
So where does that leave new collectors trying to grasp the concept? Campbell, Hall, Fahey and Montgomery all suggested what to look for when determining whether a coin has eye appeal, and ways to ensure coins with eye appeal remain that way.
Almost universally, the grading experts agree that coins must be fresh and original to have eye appeal, and that toning is a plus.
Fahey said coins with eye appeal should be original and must not have suffered any environmental damage. "Nothing has happened to it to interrupt the original luster," he said.
|
Click on image to enlarge
|
|
Images courtesy of HeritageAuctions.com. 1912 Lincoln cent graded Mint State 67 red by Numismatic Guaranty Corp. has a star added to its label to designate eye appeal. Copper coins are often affected by spotting that can reduce eye appeal.
|
Potential damage
Some of the factors that can affect a coin's condition, and ultimately its eye appeal, are what the coin has been stored in, and where it has been stored, Campbell said.
"Holders are damaging the coins. I can't tell you the exact percentage, but a significant number of coins submitted to ANACS are in crispy flips loaded with PVC. Why someone would store a coin worth hundreds and in some cases thousands of dollars in PVC …" Campbell's voice trails off.
Campbell said that while many albums and storage products from the 1990s and the present are safe, many coins remain in older holders loaded with polyvinyl chloride (PVC).
"The coins are en-crusted in there. One person brought in coins to view. He said, ‘I've had the coins in this album since 1964.' I'm thinking, ‘Oh, God, what am I going to see?' "
PVC will add a layer of "slime" to a coin that detracts from its eye appeal.
The environment, particularly humidity, can also wreak havoc on coins. Campbell defined the "humidity belt" as running along the Atlantic Coast from Baltimore to Florida, across the Gulf of Mexico to Houston. Coins stored there will often exhibit damage, while those stored in low-humidity places like Phoenix, Ariz., Albuquerque, N.M., and Denver will not. Those storing coins in safety deposit boxes should use desiccants to draw moisture out of the air to protect their coins.
One doctor in West Palm Beach, Fla., thought his unopened 1956 Proof sets would be "perfect" because they were still in the box in which they were originally shipped. Instead, all of the Lincoln 1-cent pieces were charcoal black because of the high salty air, Campbell said.
Industrial pollution is also a negative influence on a coin's eye appeal. Coins from collectors in industrial cities of Cleveland and Pittsburgh have often been damaged, Campbell said.
|
Click on image to enlarge
|
|
Images courtesy of HeritageAuctions.com. 1940-S Walking Liberty half dollars are notoriously weakly struck, so a sharply struck example, like the coin graded MS-67 by NGC shown, has added eye appeal.
|
Originality, luster
PVC and environmental damage are just some potential pitfalls.
Another concern noted by the grading specialists was originality. By that, the experts mean the coin has not been dipped, cleaned or otherwise altered from its original state.
The idea that bright and shiny coins are better gained traction in the 1950s with the widespread acceptance of Proof sets, according to Campbell and Bowers.
Bowers said that coins with toning were not wanted then. "All sorts of lotions and potions were advertised to dip, process, and otherwise brighten coins so they could be brilliant and thus have eye appeal," Bowers said.
He added: "Given a choice, the typical buyer today would consider a brilliant Uncirculated 1933 half dollar (to cite a miscellaneous example) to be more desirable than one with medium gray toning. However, it is a fact of life that any fully brilliant silver coin of the early 19th century is that way because of dipping or processing. Thus it can be said that for many buyers, ‘brilliant' equates to ‘good eye appeal.' Of course, a brilliant coin that has scuffing or rubbing or other negative aspects may fall short."
In some respects, the desire for shiny coins remains an issue today, Campbell said.
"At least some collectors think that if they clean a coin, they can make it a higher grade. But 99 percent of the time [the grade] is substantially lowered. It's almost never the case [that cleaning will improve a grade]. Some collectors couldn't resist that urge to take that Brillo pad to it. If people think they can improve the grade by cleaning, that's like doing brain surgery on yourself – you're probably not going to like the results."
Fahey agrees. "Originality just kind of jumps out as the No. 1 thing," he said. "It's so hard to teach someone until they've seen a large number of original pieces."
Luster is another factor, Hall said. "Some have tremendous luster, and other coins the luster is more subdued. That's a nice word; dull is another word."
Luster is viewed as the light naturally reflected from metal flow lines that develop under the high pressure used in striking a coin. Friction from any cause will break the luster.
Fahey said some gold coins will have a "subdued luster" if they've been dipped "one too many times."
|
Click on image to enlarge
|
|
Modern coins from the U.S. Mint, like this 2007 Jamestown Quadricentennial $5 gold half eagle, are fairly uniform in appearance and generally all have great eye appeal.
|
Toning, color issues
Above all, the issue of color and toning seemed to be the areas in which all experts agreed.
Toning is the oxidation of a coin's surface, which collectors may find attractive or not, depending on taste. Toning is understood to be "natural," unless designated "artificial," which describes a coin that has been cleaned and then treated chemically or otherwise to simulate a natural appearance.
"For me, color is paramount," Montgomery said. "The simplest way to define it [eye appeal] is coins that exhibit real original color, Montgomery said. "The key is originality. You have to make sure there's original toning, and especially for new collectors it's hard to know what is original and what is fake."
Montgomery points to the Mint sets from the 1950s for coins with original red, blue and purple hues thanks to the cardboard packaging. Many of these sets remain in dealer stock still in original packaging, he said.
Another source for toned coins is original rolls. Montgomery said the end pieces often have "beautiful toning" with beautiful, original color.
"A set of Walkers [Walking Liberty half dollars] all white is not necessarily going to blow my mind as far as possible eye appeal as having three or four with beautiful colors," Montgomery said.
Fahey points to Morgan dollars with toning as coins with particular eye appeal.
"Take a Morgan dollar from a 1,000-coin bag, with rainbow toning because it was pressed up against the bag and the sulfur caused the toning. Some of those have very vivid rainbow toning," he said. "There's pretty strong agreement they have exceptional eye appeal and they bring premium money."
But color is different for copper and gold coins.
Fahey said a whole range of colors can be found on copper coins, mostly because of the impurities in copper.
"Different people like different color," he said. "A copper coin that's red with shades of gold, one person might like that better than a coin that's red with tinges of green. Some people like light red better than darker red."
The standards for copper coins are different than silver coins, Hall said.
"There are ugly copper coins, and there are beautiful copper coins. They look different than beautiful silver coins," he said.
Early copper coins, Fahey said, frequently exhibit light surface pitting, and coins with a "nice smooth brown surface" have more eye appeal.
Hall agreed. Copper coins that are "brown and splotchy with unevenly dug-into surfaces" are a negative, Hall said.
Bowers said that many Lincoln and Indian Head cents that have fingerprints or blotches of dark brown against original Mint red are certified as red and brown, but are not very attractive. On the other hand, he said, many RB coins have original Mint color blending to natural brown and can be very pretty.
Fahey said it is particularly tough to determine the "original flash of gold," what original surfaces look like on gold coins. Fahey added, "People that have handled a lot of gold, they know it's not always the same color because the coins were struck from gold from different gold fields, or from gold with different amounts of copper or silver mixed in."
Coins struck from new dies, or from dies prepared better than others, also stand out.
Copper spots can negatively affect eye appeal for gold and silver coins, Fahey and Hall said.
Quality of strike
The experts disagree on whether the quality of a strike matters for eye appeal.
Campbell said the standards for what makes good eye appeal don't change between series, but Montgomery and Fahey said strike matters, for some series.
Montgomery said there are different standards for different series. The 1940-S Walking Liberty half dollar is notoriously weakly struck, with a "pancake strike," he said. Early Standing Liberty quarter dollars are also weakly struck.
Fully struck examples of those series would stand out, he said, whereas strike would be uniform and thus not a factor with modern coins, like the Proof silver American Eagles. "It's hard to say there's eye appeal because they're fairly uniform in appearance," Montgomery said. "Eye appeal means the look is truly extraordinary to the coin itself. It's above and beyond what you would expect for the coin."
Fahey agrees. "Strike does have something to do with it, especially for coins that are notorious for being weakly struck. You're looking for something out of the ordinary, better than normal," he said.
Bowers maintains that modern coins, like the Jamestown commemoratives issued this year, do have "superb" eye appeal because nearly all are sharply struck and, in their case, "the grading number alone will suffice."
Morgan silver dollars from the New Orleans Mint are another subset of coins that are weakly struck, so sharply struck, original examples will have added eye appeal, he said.
Hall said that strike is a separate issue, noting that "nickel is the hardest metal, so they're more weakly struck."
Final thoughts
Hall said that certain factors don't change across the board.
"You look at the coin and ask yourself what you like or dislike about the coin. It's very probable a majority of people will agree. That applies across series and all metals," he said.
However you want to quantify eye appeal, Campbell points out that, "Coins with original eye appeal are getting scarcer and scarcer. It's the nature of the beast."
Prices for these coins continue to increase as an ever-increasing number of collectors are competing for an ever-shrinking supply of coins with original eye appeal.
Fahey said a person's vision will play a role. "The more color perception, the better vision someone has, it's going to be easier for them," he said.
"And hopefully what's in fashion won't change in five to 10 years, and that's happened before in the coin business," Fahey said.
