Accidental Artificial Toning, an Experiment in Progress

IrishMike

Maybe some of you have noticed that I am not one of those folk who necessarily believe something is true, because some one tells me it is. In August a local dealer was relaying a story of how he had accidentally toned a coin. The story seemed plausible enough to me. I pulled this coin out of a 1962 proof set, which I had purchased as unopened (yeah right). The Franklin had a big old ugly dark toning spot at 9 o'clock. Anyway for the past couple of months I have subjected this coin to the same set of circumstances my dealer described. No heat has been applied to this coin nor had any chemical has been directly applied to the coin.

nwcs

I'm doing a similar experiment with a lustrous 1964 JFK (MS-64). I've put it under the sink where all the chemicals are floating around and seeing what happens. And I've put several AU/MS 1964 quarters in various wrappers to see what happens to them.

dorkkarl

here's one that gives interesting results, especially since winter is here. put a white coin in your heating ducts. good luck on your experiments! been there, done that, & it was extremely educational.

K S

ccr

Back in August, I tried a similar test. In 3 different medicine bottles, in 2 I put in Hydrogen Peroxide and the 3rd I put in Butane. In the Butane I put in an Ohio State Quarter and put in a window ceil. The only thing that happen after 6 weeks is the copper center turned aqua.

In the Peroxide, I put in a 1999 dime and a 2000 penny both shiny I must add. After about a week and a half to 2 weeks, in the window ceil, the penny had blotches of navy blue around the edges. The 1999 dime, in terms of toning, came out the best. That too was in the window ceil for about a week and a half to 2 weeks. I came out completely covered with a domonate navy blue with pinks,greens, and orange. So I have to cut this short but thats my experement.

Rover

Mike-so what is your technique?

Dan

Bear

Whats that paint slogan , Earl Shieb. will paint any coin any color for 129.95.

IrishMike

Dan, here is the story as relayed to me by the coin dealer. He came home from a show and set a coin, which was in a small manilla envelope on his dresser. About six months later he opened the envelope and discovered the coin had toned. It seems his wife had laid down a layer of furniture polish on the dresser and the polish moistened the envelope and caused the coin to tone.

Now this sounded like a good story, so I thought why not, this poor Franklin had one ugly toning spot. I sprayed the furniture polish on my desk. My wife got all excited, she actually thought I was helping to clean the house, by the way I didn't let on any differently. Now I spray the polish on every two weeks. The wife is happy and coin is indeed toning.

Flash

In my opinion, in all the cases above except CCR's the coins will display natural toning. I was torn between natural or AT on Dorkkarl's heating duct coin, but then decided if a coin was accidently dropped into a heating duct and the result was a toned coin, then that coin has toned naturally in the environment it was in. I consder CCR's coins to be AT due to the intentional use of chemicals. Even though they toned as a result of their environment I think it highly unlikely that the coins could end up in that environment without the deliberate attempt to create something that could not have been created on its own. The coins in the other cases could have. A coin an inavertantly acquire toning by sitting on a polished dresser, but being in a bottle of chemicals is not something I would call inadvertant.

mbbiker

After putting a coin in the heating ducts, or putting on a dresser and it tones all pretty would PCGS/NGC grade it or would they call it AT?

dorkkarl

i'll say again that all wild'n'crazy colors are AT. so the answer is a definitive: "maybe".

K S