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Hairlines, toning, and wear are three different things
Wear flattens the design. Hairlines are scratches from cleaning. Toning is color from air. Mixing them up is how a pretty coin becomes a details coin.
Three things get called “ugly” that are not the same.
Wear is metal gone. The cheek is flat. The letters are soft. That is a circulated grade. AG to AU. Sheldon.
Hairlines are scratches. A cloth, a pencil eraser, a “dip and wipe.” They catch the light in parallel lines. The design can still be sharp. The coin is often still uncirculated — and still a details problem if the lines are bad. Don’t clean.
Toning is color. Silver and copper react with air, paper, and albums. Rainbow rims can be original. Splotchy cardboard can be ugly and still original. Artificial color exists too. A shop will say which they think it is. They will not always be gentle.
How to tell them apart
Tilt under a lamp. Loupe. Wear stays dull on the high point. Hairlines move as lines. Toning sits on the surface like a stain or a sunrise.
A pretty tone does not make a common date rare. A wiped key date is still a key date, with a worse number. Old is not rare.
What a shop pays
Wear sets the circulated grade. Hairlines can knock a Mint State coin into details. Toning can help, hurt, or do nothing. None of that is a YouTube “always dip it” rule.
More on the coin and money library.