Teach Me The Secrets.

Old time collectors of silver coins used to dust the folders with sulfur to achieve toning over time. Almost anything containing sulfur will tone a coin. Onions contain sulfur as does a hard boiled egg. If you want to experiment, try taking a bullion silver eagle, place it in a covered container with a fresh hot hard boiled egg that has been chopped up and watch the pretty tones that appear. Sometimes however the sulfur will do nothing more than darken or blacken the surfaces.

Quickly achieved toning isn't necessarily stable. It will look nice for a little while, but you may not be able to predict what the terminal stage will be. That's one reason why people want to know if toning is natural or "artificial". Some of these "monster toned" coins that people are going crazy over these days will end up being just monsters in a few years I'm afraid.

I can't imagine in a million years attractive whitman folder toning. I've seen many silver collections held in the old whitman folders, and they are usually splotchy dark brown and black toned.

Maybe some kind of velvet that the coin can be set on, then flipped over after a month or so?

Artificial toning achieved through the sulfer in eggs or something alike provides an unnatural rainbow toning that will most certainly prevent it from getting into a problem free holder.

Well said.

I understand that it's natural to want to sell your coins for more than you paid for them, and toning is one of those subjective
"additions" to the way a coin looks and can change its perceived value, but it's more of a question of being a true numismatist to me. My father was the reason I started collecting and he always said we should make sure a coin's condition is preserved for the future collectors that will end up with our coins long after we are gone.

Will you be telling your buyers that the coins you sell were "enhanced" by some process that changed the way they toned? What happens if they take them to a dealer or send them in to be certified and then find that they are not what they thought they were?

It should be the goal of a numismatist to preserve the coins we collect so they are as close to the condition we find them in as possible. Toning is something that happens. Once you introduce a substance or process into that equation, you will have a coin that is Artificially Toned. Most of the time it's easy to tell an AT coin from natural toning.

The Third-Party Grading companies should be able to tell artificial toning from natural toning in 99.99% of the cases. The coins that are questionable will be noted as just that, questionable toning or color.

Read up on the "paper napkin" Methode. I think it was Taco Bell napkins.
John1

On the matter of Whitman folders. I have two silver Mercury dime collections in beat-up Whitman folders put together long, long ago. The majority of these dimes show a subtle dark rainbow bullseye toning. I can't vouch for Whitman toning for every coin type, but I've seen it with dimes, and occasionally wheat cents.