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 Replies: 33 / Views: 12,205 |
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
3049 Posts |
I just picked up a bit of NaOH and Sulfur.... Hopefully this weekend I will have a bit of spare time and I am going to try that anodizing experiment... I will put up some pictures if I do.. hopefully something neat happens.
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Pillar of the Community
 Canada
2187 Posts |
Great! I'm so looking forward to seeing the results and possibly do it myself. By the way, may I ask were you got the sulfur? And would you know where (other than online) I can get liver of sulfur?
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
3049 Posts |
Paulsz: I would consider myself as a "tinker-er"... jack of all trades master of none kinda thing...
I have a few chemicals at my own house because of that but you can order them through a chemical supplier like Boreal... I have always had a facination with science and such. So when I read about science experiements and such it's like a calling.. if I think I can do it... I try..
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Valued Member
United States
110 Posts |
Anyone with toned coins can tell which ones are natural - theirs are, yours are not.
Tell you what, I bought and sold a lot of silver dollars before and during the first run-up of silver prices, and never saw one among mine or anyone else's with "rainbow toning".
I'm just saying...
Duncan
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
3049 Posts |
Ducan:
My impression from your reply is that this experiment of mine is in distaste and a bad thing to do, and if I have read into your response wrong I do appologise.
When it comes to legitamite or artificial toning I can't tell the difference to be honest... in terms of being in this hobby.. I'm relatively new < 3yrs in...
But I think this is a fantastic experiment for many reasons:
1) Hopefully I will be able to learn how to distinguish between artificial and natural tones... at the moment I cannot.. but soon I will have some artificially tonned examples that I can walk into my LCS and the guy there is great and will probably educate me...
2)I am performing this experiment on JUNK silver.. it only holds junk or melt value... it will never improve regardless of how many rainbows or leprechans I put on there.. I certainly hope you don't think I was trying to do this for resale value.. I assure you that is NOT my intent .. I'm just not that kind of person.
3) If I can get good results from the experiments .. what value will I be able to pass on.. if not to anyone else but my children when they become of age to do science experiements.. how cool.. first they will see coinage made with REAL SILVER.. and then do some basic chemistry... I say WINNING!
4) you say you NEVER saw a silver dollar with rainbow toning... awesome I will have something that will be pretty unique then eh?
Not everyone is trying to profit from such experiments.. and those that are.. generally wouldn't advertise that they do artifically affect the coin. Personally I try to clean coins.. I've used solvents, acids, bases, dremmels you name it.. not because I want to improve the value on coins.. because I want to LEARN what it looks like and what to look for.
I will openly admit I may not be the brightest lightbulb on the shelf.. so I do what I can to educate myself... facinate my inner child... and just in general have fun. I do okay for myself financially and certainly don't need to look for ways to profit that are underhanded, or manipulative in a hobby that I am growing to love.
Please I hope you and everyone else here realizes that I'm only doing this for fun...
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
937 Posts |
Hi Paulsz
You used to able to get sulphur at the drug store. Just go in and ask and if they have it they'll show it to you. As an interesting side note on how fast I've seen sulphur react with silver; years ago I was eating eggs with some sterling silverware and by the time breakfast was over the fork was already turning brown. Took a lot of polishing to get the luster back again. Watch the sulphur experiment -- sulphur will eventually eat away at the surface of the metal and cause it to pit. Javex or other household bleaches will also tone silver, but they are nasty with the pitting as well. If you have some melt-value silver you may want to try it to see what happens and get some comparisons, but don't try it on anything of value. Cheers!
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Valued Member
Canada
470 Posts |
Edited by 1188howest
01/16/2014 9:15 pm
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
532 Posts |
Back east where I used to live you could pick up rocks of sulfur on the side of the canal. Used to be a chemical depot at one time. Wonder how it would work out? Thanks for the ideas.
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
4911 Posts |
Atticguy, how long did you leave the coin in salt and did you clean it afterwards?
Feel free to call me Will.
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
3049 Posts |
So tonight I tried anodizing some of my junk silver coins. I was actually very surprised at the results.
I made up a 1 M Solution of NaOH into 500 ml of water. I then added two heaping teaspoons sulfur..
When I started the coins would start to turn light golden brown and then would change to a dark purple with tones of blue...
I could not get a rainbow effect.. but could control the light brown (golden) tones all around the coins...
However ... when I went to give all the coins a rinse.. they all basically washed off the purple and blue and all that was left was a light golden yellow or brown in some areas. A couple coins were in contact and stuck together during the rinse and one quarter a blue ring remained but that was it.
This left me with a few questions...
Would I get different results if I used a higher concentration of NaOH? Or added even more Sulfur into the mixture? Would the coins remain purple or blue if I waited a longer time before I rinsed them..
All in all it was a fun experiment to do... I will post some pics of the coins later.. unfortunately while doing the experiment I didn't take pictures as my camera battery was/is still recharging... but I will put up a pic or two later to show how the coins turned out.
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
2187 Posts |
That sounds like it was cool. I cant answer your question unfortunately because I am not familiar with the chemicals' effects,but hopefully someone can. I should definetaly go get my hands on some sulfur when I get the time
can't wait for those pics! :)
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
3049 Posts |
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Valued Member
United States
110 Posts |
AgCoinAu,
I'm sorry if I offended you, that was not my intent. The point I was trying to make (to everyone) is, in the 1970's and earlier, silver dollars, and silver pocket change too for that matter, were common. And they were silver. Coin shops had silver coins on display and "monster rainbow toning" was not a factor. The silver coins that did tarnish were mostly just turning black.
The toned coins in the marketplace back then were only seen in the color photos of extreme rarities, and pretty much only just existed at all because of poor storage. Out of the thousands of dollars in silver dollars and other coins I handled and bought/sold or examined, there was never, ever one "rainbow toned" silver dollar, half, quarter or dime among them.
So it doesn't take a chemist to figure out that the proliferation of toned coins in the marketplace today have to be to a very large extent modern artificial creations. Silver dollars have been around a long time but rainbow toned ones in large numbers only just popped up recently, so what has changed? Answer - coin doctors figured out how to create them. You know that's true, otherwise some of you here wouldn't be toying with the question of how it's done.
Google "rainbow toning" or check it out on YouTube, learn all you can, but don't make the mistake of thinking that there are enough genuine NATURAL rainbow toned coins out there to supply the new market fad - they are being CREATED to feed the beast. Some just look better than others.
I'm just saying...
Edited by Duncan_Doenitz
01/19/2014 02:49 am
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
3049 Posts |
DD: Naw... you didn't offend me.. at all.. I just wanted to make it clear.. the reason I'm doing this is for the fun, and educational experience...
I totally understand your point... approximately a year ago I saw a '67 silver dollar that was a velvet blue.. after this experiment I saw some of those tones in the coins before I washed them off.... I do think there are some people that can DOC up coins and because there's a demand for it people will DOC the coins.
So far I have found this thread to be very exciting and educational... I'm very new into this hobby still so I look at all avenues to learn.
Cheers my friend and thank you for your input and sage advice
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1373 Posts |
thedollarman--- Quote:
Atticguy, how long did you leave the coin in salt and did you clean it afterwards? I left the coins in for about 20 - 30 minutes. I don't remember if I tried to rinse the 'salted' coin afterwards and it's now in the wife's coin jug, so I probably couldn't find it quickly, if at all. BTW, I used seasoned salt, which might better explain the color I got. It's possible I just dyed the coin instead of toning it. |
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Posted 01/16/2014 1:18 pm
