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Natural Artifical Toning?


SquirrelNuts

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I realize that you can artifically tone a coin within several hours to several days. I purchased some artifically toned silver dollars to use for comparison. Is it possible to set up conditions to make coins tone naturally over a period of several years? I am a very patient person, and I think it would be neat to buy $1,000 in coins today and set them up to tone and pull them out in 40 years. Any ideas or is the whole idea actually artifically toning?

 

-Robert

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toning is caused by oxidation....if you can set up the right conditions....coins can tone within weeks...and be completely natural and some coins may not tone at all. I have noticed that some coins that are poorly struck will not tone....my theory is that the planchets were not properly annealed and therefore they are hard and will not take strike as well. that might have something to do with toning...but I haven't figured it out yet....

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You could just use some of the storage that lead to some of the natural toning out there...Wayte Raymond albums, old mint bags, old paper envelopes, etc and hope for the best.

 

The only problem is that not everything that toned in the old, natural ways toned attractively. The unnatractive stuff has probably all been dipped back to white leaving it seem like all the old stuff toned beautifully. 40 yeays and $1000 dollars later and you might end up with a bunch of dark splotchy ugly coins. :ninja:

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Some of the older US storage methods in my opinion make coins turn fairly ugly; crescent toning, rainbow toning, tone on one side but not on the other, striped toning, all weird colourful shades that make it look as if the coin had a wild night on the town with ecstacy pills. Not good.

 

 

Colourful toning is tarnish and basically down to poor storage. Some may be attractive but at the end of the day the tone is slowly corroding the coin. Coins with less toning will last longer. All silver coins will turn black sooner or later.

 

Therefore i favour lighter grey toned coins, or coins with no tone, hence why i buy cleaned coins.

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Therefore i favour lighter grey toned coins, or coins with no tone, hence why i buy cleaned coins.

 

For what you collect, you probably have not much choice but to collect cleaned coins. I don't think very many pieces of silver would not turn black or at least very dark in 1000 years time, would they?. :ninja:

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True. Whilst alot are cleaned for identification (having been dug up). Some are no doubt cleaned for æsthetic reasons (i.e what i'd call non-necessary). I've seen coins where the tone is uneven and a bit spotchy (from being underground), but the coin is clearly identifiable. Because the tone is uneven it is generally considered unacceptable to UK standards and thus the coins are cleaned. True the tone might be unsightly, but still!

 

I can understand and i'd promote the cleaning of coins that have toned due to storage in sulphur containing envelopes or whatever (as i'd consider this artificial, not because people have always done it to tone a coin but more recently people have been doing just that so being a pessimist i treat them as all done on purpose).

 

When a coin is accidentally lost, or buried for keeping safe in a time of strife and tones underground i'd consider this natural and thus not clean worthy. Because the last thing on the person's mind when he buried it was wondering how it was gonna tone, or how much he could sell it for. He was more worried about the Vikings not killing him, laying his crops to waste, burning down his local church, his hut and pillaging every possession he'd got whilst abducting his wife and children and taking them back as slaves.

 

How times change...

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FWIW, old pulp paperback books will cause silver to tone, sometimes spectacularly, when coins are put between the pages and the books stored in an attic where dry, hot conditions exist.

 

The sulphuric acid used in paper production does the trick and the cheaper the pulp paper, the more sulphur residue remains.

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