I picked this coin out of a dealer's 50% off box a while ago. It was listed at something like 40 cents, so I got it for 20 cents. I bought it for two reasons:

#1: I needed the date
#2: It looked kind of cool.

Now if I had to put my money on it, it's an AT coin. But what do I know? Been fooled before!






Ah heck. While we're at it, post an AT coin that you have.

NT or AT? Could you clarify what those mean?

thanks

Naturally Toned and Artifically Toned

I would guess that the '26 Lincoln is NT and the Morgan is as well. I'm judging by the color, but colors are kind of dependant on your monitor when viewing pics online.

Here's my AT ...
Looks like a Christmas tree ornament ...

Another question I should know the answer to but don't:

How can you go about artificially toning coins?

I'm a materials engineering major so all of this intrigues me.

That Morgan I posted was doctored by one of the more infamous AT artists on eBay. I can't remember his name, something like gotoningcoins. He always puts "Enjoy your hobby" in his auctions. I wanted to see what it looked like in person, and it only cost me $17.

By the way, I think the cent was put through the wash I guess AT.

Heat treatment can really change the colors of cents.

I heard of people using sulfur too. There was a website that had instructions on how to do it using some type of liquid (ammonia I think), onions, and boiled eggs.

Clearly AT....but it may not have been intentional.......could have been in a pocket.....could have been improperly stored..........environmental damage etc........but not normal natural toning for sure.

Isn't UNintentional Artificial Toning just Natural Toning?

An interesting question, most of us think of toning as a normal stage in a coins life. But toning is a change to the coins molecular structure, all toning is a form of corrosion, whether its copper, silver, or bronze, ect. So in a way unintentional artificial toning is the same as natural toning. A flame on copper turns it all sorts of interesting colors, and is basically changing the structure of the copper itself, annealing the coin makes it softer, and will also bring impurities to the surface, these can be removed with a mild acid (called pickle) in the metalsmithing field. It will make the copper a dull pink though, and it's hard to get it to look natural again without chemicals. I've never actually tried this with a copper cent though, if I get time, I'll play around with one in the studio and post shots on here.

Does gold tone, and if so, how? Just age?

Gold can tone, but not very much, normally you just get a little darker shade of "gold", and that is mainly because of the copper content in the gold itself. Newer bullion gold will almost never tone, it may get a little "foggy" looking, but I don't think .999 pure gold will tone as it's only .001% other trace elements. Maybe with chemical assistance it can though.

Not sure what kind of toning this is. I received three of these in change a few years ago. Photographed here with a normal variety on the right - no camera setting issues as both coins are photographed at the same time.

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Looks like early onset album tone, most of my state quarters in the blue witman albums have a yellow to gold tone all over, or bullseyed on them.

Does anyone know what would cause silver to tone pink? I have 3 old Russian coins that were stored in an old box for years. I pulled the coins out and out of probably 70 silver coins, only those 3 were pink. Some of the others had some bluish-black tone, like you'd expect on silver. Just odd that those turned pink.

Sulfer or certain acids in paper turn copper pink at times, it's possible the paper had a high sulfer/acid content, and the coins, a high copper content?

I don't really know the alloy for late Czarist Silver coins. I wouldn't know about acid content in the paper either. Since sulfur has a pretty distinct odor, I could catch that. ( hopefully anyway)
Does yellow toning come from the same agents ? They have traces of yellow with the pink, really pretty if you ask me.