Album Toning: Is it the Album or the Environment?

OneCent

I'm sure that this topic has been discussed on here ad nauseum at some point, but I've come to a major conclusion.

The environment in which the album is kept is the primary factor on whether or not coins is said album will tone. If a coin album is kept in a climate controlled environment chances are that no toning will take place. However, take that same album and place it in a humid, hot environment and viola, toning happens.

Is this a brilliant conclusion or what!

AlixTCat

Sounds good. Not necessarily true though.
Case in point.

I have several albums of silver and clad coins in my garage in Florida. 99% humidity and over 100 F in the garage. 4 years, not a single coin is toning.
I have an SAE collection from the start until this year. It is stored inside, in a Dansco anti-corrosion slip cover. 3 years and 30% of the coins are toning darkly starting at the edge and moving inward. I do not like this. I bought the Dansco album for the anti-corrosive slip covers. They didn't work for me. Climate is 70-77F all the time. Humidity is controlled.

Theory busted.

Jonathan

pharmer

After I had been on here a while, and learned about the toning that mint set cardboard, paper rolls, album pages, etc cause, I not only sought out the rainbow examples of that toning, but endeavored to learn why it happens.

Turns out wood pulp is broken down with, among other things, sulfuric acid. Presumeably some tiny amounts of residue may remain after even thorough washing of the fibers when paper, cardboard and other materials are manufacturered from the raw product. The sulfide moiety that reacts with elemental silver from the coin likely originates here, producing the silver sulfide deposition, the light refraction and reflection from which (thin film interference effect) produces the colors we see.

There will be a test.

Deadhorse

It's 90% album and maybe 10% environment in my experience. Maybe even 97%-3%.

IOW, it's the album or chemical composition of the holder. Humidity/heat are way overrated when it comes to accelerated toning.

Heat will produce blatant AT, though.

BAJJERFAN

<< <i>After I had been on here a while, and learned about the toning that mint set cardboard, paper rolls, album pages, etc cause, I not only sought out the rainbow examples of that toning, but endeavored to learn why it happens.

Turns out wood pulp is broken down with, among other things, sulfuric acid. Presumeably some tiny amounts of residue may remain after even thorough washing of the fibers when paper, cardboard and other materials are manufacturered from the raw product. The sulfide moiety that reacts with elemental silver from the coin likely originates here, producing the silver sulfide deposition, the light refraction and reflection from which (thin film interference effect) produces the colors we see.

There will be a test. >>



Counter to test!!

Please explain how the sulfate sulfur, oxidation state +6 gets reduced/converted to sulfur(0) elemental sulfur or sulfide oxidation state -2 so that it is in a form capable of reacting with the silver to form the silver sulfide which is ultimately responsible for the toning we observe.

pharmer

Tom, your a chemist, I'm a pharmacist. You tell me why it couldn't be reduced to -2 so that Ag2S can form? At least I try to explain the toning while you merely imply an error without substantiating your claim. You explain.

pharmer

Tom, put the books down. If you know your stuff, you could have substantiated that by now. Maybe you're upset that I figured out the source of sulfur thus sulfide ultimately was from the treatment of the wood pulp to produce fiber. A little intellectual curiosity would have gotten you there as well, if you had bothered, like I did, to do the work. You know that we are talking decades of exposure to any number of potential electron donors, so for you to say it can't happen is preposterous. Prove it.

BAJJERFAN

Sorry, didn't return to this thread until this morning.

I think we have been over this point once before. In order for residual sulfate to be responsible for any type of toning observed on coins kept in albums it must be converted to a form that will react with the coinage metals since sulfate will NOT tone coins directly. I'm not sure that the papermaking process provides the conditions for that process.
A quick perusal on the net Kraft Process does indicate that sulfiDe is commonly used directly in the papermaking process so perhaps residues from that are more likely the sorce of toning chemical
Also who knows what else may have been added along the line before the album finally made its way to your bookshelf.

jmski52

Yikes, look at all the sulfur by-products that result from the Kraft process! Different production facilities, different levels of rinsing, different combinations of residual by-products = chemical soup. A toner lover's paradise.

LickThoseStamps

<< <i>Is this a brilliant conclusion or what! >>



If its caused by the environment, should't it be called "Environment Toning"?

Type2

So is this where all the tone doctors are ?

Mowgli

http://rg.ancients.info/guide/toning.html

pharmer

Tom, I just logged in, and found a few pm's about what a horses a$$ you're being on this. I found the info below in about 30 seconds just now, read the first paragraph, and the previous research I did on this over the years since I've been on here always leads me to info about sulfuric acid being used on wood pulp and in paper products production. So not only are you wrong, you are doing so deliberately.

What's up, dude, last we spoke you were so appreciative of the medical advice I gave you on your meds. Why you in my face on this, man? I'm right. Figuring out the source of sulfur radicals re: toning via mint sets, paper rolls, album pages, never even occurred to you, but you're foaming at the moth to nit-pick a point about which you turn out to be totally wrong?

You must feel like a fool.

Sulfuric acid used in paper production

pharmer

OK, I'm outta here early for once, for the long weekend, soon gonna be standing in a river waving a stick for a couple days, then fishing for gigantic trout at a special place with spring fed ponds. In the interim, here's a link for many different sites where you can learn about sulfuric acid and wood pulp and paper production. Use various keyword combinations like sulfuric acid paper production, etc and you'll come up with many more. No hard feelings, I know you're a proud person, just consider the facts as presented.

Search was for "sulfuric acid wood pulp"

bushmaster8

I gotta think both of you have valid points, but I have to think Pharmer is closest to the core.

I make no claims to being a chem-whiz, but if I understand things correctly H2.SO4 in the presence of water ionizes to H+ and HSO3- (a sulfide).

At any rate it is practically indisputable that it is primarily the sulphur compounds (in whatever form) present in paper are responsible for album toning.

BAJJERFAN

<< <i>Tom, I just logged in, and found a few pm's about what a horses a$$ you're being on this. I found the info below in about 30 seconds just now, read the first paragraph, and the previous research I did on this over the years since I've been on here always leads me to info about sulfuric acid being used on wood pulp and in paper products production. So not only are you wrong, you are doing so deliberately.

What's up, dude, last we spoke you were so appreciative of the medical advice I gave you on your meds. Why you in my face on this, man? I'm right. Figuring out the source of sulfur radicals re: toning via mint sets, paper rolls, album pages, never even occurred to you, but you're foaming at the moth to nit-pick a point about which you turn out to be totally wrong?

You must feel like a fool.

Sulfuric acid used in paper production >>



Well Bill I didn't single you out for any particular reason other than it was you who made the post and i do appreciate any useful info which you have offered in the past. I likely would have had the same response no matter who made the comment. I have no desire to start or keep going [here or in private] a pissing contest. I guess if I made 20 or 30 in-your-face posts I mite even consider myself as being an ass. I simply asked you to substantiate a claim that you made which could have been done in any number of ways. So why don't dips that contain sulfuric acid actually tone coins instead of cleaning them? And since no one here has been able to demonstrate in a plausble way how the presence of traces of sulfate/sulfuric acid can lead to toning, how does that make me a fool?

Oh and BTW how am I wrong? I never said that sulfuric acid wasn't used in making paper. And I never said that sulfate wasn't the source of sulfur that could eventually cause the toning of coins kept in albums. I simply asked if sulfate was the source of toning sulfur then how does it get from sulfate to sulfide/sulfur because to me it seems an unlikely transformation to happen during the papermaking process.

OH and BTW what makes you so special? I didn't get ANY PMs like that.

Nic

Both. K

Edit to change yes to both

BAJJERFAN

<< <i>
I make no claims to being a chem-whiz, but if I understand things correctly H2.SO4 in the presence of water ionizes to H+ and HSO3- (a sulfide).
>>



What you have shown here is the ionization to H+ and bisulfite from sulfurous acid. That is in no way, shape or form a sulfide.