half tone experiment

tneig

Hey, stuck in the house today..

Egg white toning experiment in the morning.
Half dip at noon.
Engelhard bar got very dark fast, quarter hardly any effect, 2oz'er sort of nice. Seems it only needs a half hour for a subtle tone.

jmski52

Lol, not my cup of tea. I do like naturally occuring rainbow toning however.

tneig

Yeah, part of the bases of the experiment. If I could do this on sparse info, so quickly,
then likely I could match natural toning closely. So, how would one know the difference?

Not that there is anything wrong with toned, as some of it is nice, and if enjoyed worth more.

Is toned every graded as such?

ricko

Artificial Tarnish (AT) can be caused in a myriad of ways.... much of it is detectable since it does not follow natural tarnish progression (do a search on US Coin forum... threads abound and some of them are very detailed on NT progression). That being said, AT can be performed so that it is undetectable (although many 'expert' coin collectors hate this and usually will not admit it). I know, from experiments (many over the years) that it can be done, and done very well. The current fad is collecting tarnished coins..... not that many did not seek them years ago, as a sign of originality, but today many collectors seek color for color's sake alone - having seen the preference for natural tarnish and misinterpreting that as value imbued by the tarnish alone. These individuals pay ridiculous prices for the tarnish and will likely be forever buried in the coin's price. Rather than go on further, just do the search I suggested and you will find excellent threads by TomB and Sunnywood that explain tarnish in great detail.. Cheers, RickO

Edit to add, many methods, such as the one you have used, would likely be rejected by the PCGS sniffer.

tneig

Hi,
If I ever sold anything I experimented with (cleaned, polished, etc. it would be clearly ID' as such).
Interesting experimentation/learning which to me, shows ya never know what you are getting. I can appreciate a naturally toned rainbow piece, but then again how would I know. If it was a nice piece and inexpensive, then I wouldn't really care.

I've learned a few things so I rate all specialized' items in the high risk category, and mostly uninterested. However, there are audiences for every type of piece within a certain frame of reference. I'll keep showing things. Maybe I'll make a half toned, drilled, shot series for sale...