Perhaps I should be more careful disagreeing with
Pat but I subscribe firmly to the concept of 'eye appeal' when selecting coins for my
collection. I am not terribly interested in condition/grade terms like VF for
ancient coins. Almost all coins have some feature that makes them better or worse than their peers but grade addresses only the amount of detail present on the coin. Many of the coins in my
collection could have been described as 'nice for grade' because I tended to select a smooth surfaces VG or F over a granular or blotchy colored VF. Many sellers during the period I was actively
buying coins (recently you folks have driven prices over my
head for the most
part) would sell a pretty
denarius with worn
laurel wreath for much less than one with all the leaves even if the 'better coin' was
part legend and ugly. There came a time were 90% of the coins I saw advertised were VF grade or, perhaps, some variation on the theme like 'VF for these' or 'corroded VF'. I liked the term 'eye appeal' as a way of describing coins that did not require apologies tacked on to their grades. I don't usually think of the term being
applied to die
style since I expect coins to reflect their period and many coins I collect are short of Kimon
quality cutting so I'd be forced to call refer to a coin as having 'eye appeal for these' and even I don't go that far off the deep end.
I don't collect modern US coins but I am getting amusement out of the current fad of collecting
toned coins. People pay extra for 'rainbow' tones which usually strike me as strange looking. Of course the fad attracted peole who make a living
toning coins in the
hope that the artificial color will pass for natural. Every so often we see a silver dollar with nicely placed colors that really does look nicer than plain silver, gray or random blotchy tone so I'd say it has 'eye appeal'.
We may all differ on what gives 'appeal' to a coin. Some of us like sand patinas worn through to provide contrasts between
legend and fields; others don't. I shall retain my 'neuroscientific illiteracy' and have gut feelings about ferreting out
fakes and follow my heart in matters of rationality. I may even slip into saying that I have heard something new when I meant that I read it. I'm having a hard enough time keeping pace with the progress of idiomatic English to to abandon old friends. Pluto will always be a planet to me. I will eat hot 'dogs' made of beef and collect coins with 'eye appeal'.