Coin Toning

Start learning here:

http://www.tonedcoins.org/

Our own hadleydog is a founding member there, and will likely be wandering into this thread soon for a brief rundown.

Toning is a continuous process - a coin does not just reach a certain color point and cease changing, unless you remove it from the environment in which it toned. With silver, that is normally an environment that contains sulphur - yellow envelopes, certain albums, some wooden containers made with certain glue compounds are some of the "natural" causes of toning. "Unnatural" toning also involves the introduction of sulphur into the coin's environment, and sometimes heat is used to accelerate the process.

There are other ways to artificially tone a coin; I'm not going to discuss them here.

As toning progresses, it works through a series of colors - that's why you see "bullseye" toning on a coin. Usually having been in an album, such a coin starts toning at the rim and it proceeds inwards, the color pf a particular area changing through a spectrum as the process advances. The inevitable result of the toning process with silver will be a black coin, if the process is allowed to continue. Even in a "natural" environment, the coin will eventually become black after having gone through all the colors associated with the process.

Hi eg_collector, take a look in the educational section http://www.tonedcoins.org/forums/vi...um.php?id=15
Sorry I didn't get back to you earlier, we are at a horse show this weekend and the days just don't have enough hours in them.

Actually it is a little fun attempting to tone a coin. There are numerous methods to do it and some are considered natural. For example take any coin and put it on a window ledge in your kitchen. Over a period of time the continuous changes in temperature, humidity, gases, lighting will cause most coins to tone. And the interesting thing is that they will tone differently in different homes pending on how much and the type of cooking. Many coins toned in this slow method can not be detected since the time interval it takes is almost natural. I've been experimenting on non expensive coins for many years and it is amazing how many I've had graded as a normally toned coin. Try some with normally inexpensive coins and see what happens. Hint. Try household items first such as dish soap.

I don't suppose there is a way to remove natural toning is there? I have a few silver halfs that turned and they are pretty ugly. I haven't tried to remove the toning but it would be nice if I could without harming the coin. Any sugesstions?

Margaret