A vivid bag toned Morgan dollar

mr1931S

1882-S obverse toned from exposure to the sulfur in a mint-sealed bag for many, many years. Unretouched scan of an image from p. 46 of The Morgan and Peace Dollar Textbook by Wayne Miller.

vivid adj. 1. (of color) strong; intense (vivid green).

crossin' my fingers for the boomspeed.

mr1931S

deep adj. 1. extending far down or in.

mr1931S

Note the "splotches" of white in and around the cap. That's untoned .900 silver peeking at you. Can see silver white around the stars as well. One of the stars is almost all white.

mr1931S

Almost in defiance of the most deep and vivid colorations from the sulfur exposure from five o'clock to ten oclock, the underlying silver defines itself most attractively as the copper hues (the browns, the golds, and the oranges) seen mostly around the perimeter from ten to five oclock.

Dazzling.

Outhaul

But...is it for sale?

mr1931S

I doubt it, Outhaul, but if it were I'd go four maybe five hundred times face for it.

mr1931S

I especially like the deep reds on this piece. Copper toning gone wild.

jbsteven

I know who owns ALL the toners from that book. Yes, I have tried.

mr1931S

I've made myself a big picture of this coin on soft gloss photo paper. Turned out great. I'm going to take with me to shows I might attend for comparison purposes.

TONEDDOLLARS

Mine: meaning not yours.

pmh1nic

I really like the coin but if you took it to my local dealer you'd get "too dark, everybody wants white coins".

morgannut2

The different coloration of the letters in the headband and around the tops of the letters vs. the adjacent fields make this a nice textbook example of longterm NT coloration. It's exposure to sulfide bearing gases (a compound), not elemental sulfur.

mr1931S

The untoned white "splotches" are explainable. When the planchet for this dollar was dipped in acid at the SF mint to remove discoloring oxides after annealing, the oxides remained on parts of the planchet. Even though the coin's obverse was more or less in complete contact with the sulfur in the cloth of the bag, the chemical reactions that result in toning did not occur where the unremoved oxides remained.

It seems to me that all "completely" bag toned dollars from the SF mint that were produced in the early 1880's should have some white "spotches."

morgannut2

Residual chemicals from dipping at the mint has been shown experimentally to cause "white" salt free areas. But the process around the stars is generally attributed to the extreem metal flow in these areas where the metals rebond into their standard cubic closest packing arrangment, allowing no free surface for the H2S (gaseous) to react easily.

mr1931S

The progression of toning colors on this coin:

The yellow can be found mostly around the perimeter from 11 o'clock to 4 o'clock. Not yellow like a canary, but yellow like pure gold is yellow. One can see the browns, the oranges, the golds. These are what I call the "copperys." Next in the progression is magenta found mostly on LIBERTY herself and in the field in front of her eyes. Pinks, reds, purples. Call these the "preps." Third in the progression comes cyan seen mostly on LIBERTY's neck and below her chin and, finally, black, the color of silver sulfide, is seen on some of LIBERTY's curls and high points of her cap. Blues, greens, black. Call these the "darks."

The colors found on this coin flow into one another; "copperys" to "preps" to "darks."

That's the natural progression of toning on a Morgan dollar that has spent many, many years undisturbed in a mint sewn bag.

mr1931S

"the process around the stars is generally attributed to the extreem metal flow in these areas where the metals rebond into their standard cubic closest packing arrangment, allowing no free surface for the H2S (gaseous) to react easily."

Interesting.

mr1931S

"Mine: meaning not yours."

Interesting.

kryptonitecomics

This whole thread is interesting and I thought toning was nothing more than residue

mr1931S

"I thought toning was nothing more than residue"

I think "residue" is an appropriate single word to use to describe the coating on an artificially toned coin.

bballboy

look at this toning! Toned Morgan

mr1931S

"The REVERSE is a carbon copy of the obverse."

Indeed, those encircled-by-residue carbon-colored spots can be seen on both sides of the coin.

poorguy

Here. I couldn't stand to see that coin with those speckles in the imaging and I resized and compressed it for the dial-uppers.

I give it the old

Myqqy

I really like the coin but if you took it to my local dealer you'd get "too dark, everybody wants white coins".

That's funny.....