Toned Silver Eagles - Good Or Bad?

About 30 years ago I went into a Chevrolet dealership on business. While waiting for the owner to emerge, I watched an elderly secretary at her desk. She was smoking and in front her were 8-10 common date "white" Morgan dollars on a towel. She was directing the smoke at the dollars. I asked her why she was doing that (even though I had a pretty good idea why). She said she didn't know, but that the boss had asked her to do it, so she was doing it.

Since these are so new and shouldn't look like that, would dipping be a bad solution to restore it?

I'd bet that the two toned coins were at one end or the other of a stack of coins. It looks sort of like end of roll toning, where only one face is toned. The untoned face could have been protected because it was against another coin. If a single coin is exposed to the atmosphere for say about 21 years you might get something like this:



Edit: The coins might been against wood. Most wood is constantly out gassing and different woods out gas different chemicals. I guess if you placed it on wood for the purpose of toning it, it would be artificial toning, by natural means (is that oxymoronic?)

This one of mine was just in open air, not in or next to anything that out gasses other than what was encountered by chance in a few moves over the years. I did not mean to imply that I thought ASEs would tone in mint tubes, I don't think they would. I was imagining a loose stack of coins in the corner of a drawer. I agree that toning can happen in a matter of months under the right conditions. Sometimes the opposite of the previous scenario occurs, where the side on the surface tones and the up side doesn't. It all depends on the exact conditions. That fact is part of why I am not willing to pay a significant for even beautifully toned coins. A small premium, sure, but not what I would pay for a pristine coin one grade better. Other people put up more of a premium but I think it is risky because something like toning can go in and out of favor, whereas the grade of a well preserved coin is unlikely to change. Light toning, like on my coin above could probably be removed with a two second dip, If I had a good reason to do it. Since it is a bullion coin, pretty much all of it's value is in the silver, so toning makes no difference in value.