What's Wrong With This ASE?

Hmmmm... I dunno about that. The white spots are simply the normal silver showing, and as I mentioned before, the coin seems perfectly smooth with no indication of any residue of any sort.

Two other loose coins from the same batch (same year as well) have similar coloration, although not nearly as widespread:



I think you were trying to explain the white blotches, but I really wanted to know what caused the purple coloration in the first place. Is this just toning? I've never seen toning this color before and have no idea what would have caused it, but if it's just toning I won't worry about it. I think the color makes the coins look very interesting, but I was just worried that this was the result of some sort of corrosion or other damage that would affect the value of the coins.

Portions of the coin did not tone due to some substance on the coin surface. From the fingerprint I would expect skin oils from handling.

The purple toning is not uncommon...

Ah, that makes sense, thank you. As I said, I've never seen this color toning on silver coins before, but I only have a few ASEs (all the rest are 90% silver).

The fingerprints obviously keep these from being in mint condition, but otherwise I think I did OK getting them for just over spot value. Assuming silver doesn't suddenly crash back down to $5/oz...

I picked up three other nice ASEs earlier in the week for $45 each, which I thought was a good deal at the time because all the other dealers I saw were asking $48-55 for them. On my last day in NYC I found the shop selling these for $42 and snapped them up. He actually had about 10 more, but I was already over budget as is.

Unless you like the appearance of the coin by all means try E-Z-Est or a similar cleaner to remove the color. That should give you a uniform white coin and it won't affect its worth as a silver round. It's not like you would be sending it in for grading, right? A grading service is likely to be the only entity that would object to a gentle dipping.

The main problem with that ASE is you have it and I don't. Send all of the ones you have that are toned, dented, scratched, discolored, etc,etc..I pay spot.

@ $42 you did great! You might have got him to give you an even bigger discount if you offered to buy all them. $44 is the going rate for ASE here and $35 for Peace and Morgan dollar.

You are going to feel even better when that Silver dollar is nice and shiny. Then you will feel even better when one day you sell it for $84..I think doubling your money is not going to be to far off.

The toning may well be the result of outgasing from whatever wood the storage container was made of. Cedar will rapidly tome silver, in a matter of weeks. Different woods will cause different tones but the browns and purples seem to be fairly common colors. Bottom line, don't store coins in your cedar chest or felt lined wood jewelry box unless they are slabbed or you want them to tone. Most of these light, new tones can be removed by a one or two second dip in EZest followed by a complete rinse. I do a water rinse then a soapy water (dish detergent) rinse then another pure water rinse to make sure that all of the EZest is removed. This method can also remove that light fog that forms on some 50's & 60's silver or nickel proofs (never dip copper).