Are coils supposed to look like this?

I have two coils here, one looks like bright, polished steel(unused). This one has been used a couple of times, but it looked like this(dull and grey) even when it arrived. Is this normal or is something fishy about this particular coil?

I don’t think that a new coil would like that, but maybe? It’s probably just the alloys used for the coil. Where did you get your coils? I know they’re all made in China, that’s not what I mean; I mean the seller. Because that’s the critical (only?) point of quality control, IMO. I’m hopeful that @710Coils or @Shooby or @invertedisdead (or whoever I’m forgetting that knows a lot) will see this and offer up their wisdom.

Good question @anycolouryoulike and good luck with the answer!

@anycolouryoulike Coils are treated with a few different types of coatings. The most common is the nickel coating and it can sometimes darken like that faster than expected. I have seen it a few times with coils and it never impacted the quality of the coil. It was just an cosmetic thing. One thing I did when my coils looked like this was when they are cold. Take a green scrub pad that is dry and polish the coil with it on the inside and outside. Then once done. Dip the coil in ISO to rinse off residue and it should help make the coil look more presentable =)

I think you should be fine and a dry polish should sort things for you

Thank you for chiming in, guys. I don't know where this coil came exactly from as it was given to me, but it's most likely from DHGate. It does look pretty ugly(and nickel probably isn't anyone's favourite material) but at least this means I can still use it.