Artificial Toning Experiment

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...

thedollarman---


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.