by Reid Goldsboro
Among coin collectors,
As a general rule,
There are exceptions to this, of course, with some advanced collectors preferring their silver coins blast white. Both
A beautifully
The appreciation of
is
Eventually bronze and silver coins, over perhaps hundreds of thousands of years depending on the chemical makeup of their environment, will transform into 100 percent of the reactive products, as the
Not all
is an alteration of the chemical makeup and color of a coin ‘s surface. It takes place naturally over time as the metal reacts with chemicals in its environment, typically to various sulfur-based compounds. Or it can be induced artificially, and more quickly. Natural
Some contend that not all coins tone, silver or otherwise. If sealed in an airtight environment, the surfaces of a coin will deplete sulfur and other chemicals around it and stop
Metals
Numismatic metals tone in different ways. Silver coins as a whole tone more beautifully than those made of other metals. Silver, exposed to the right environmental influences — to small amounts of hydrogen sulfur in the air or larger amounts in albums, envelopes, canvas bags, paper rolls, leather wallets or purses, rubber bands, and some glues and paints — can naturally turn subtle or sometimes brilliant shades of yellow, magenta, turquoise, and other colors before eventually turning black. The
Ancient silver coins are often black when unearthed, the black surfaces typically caused by the sulfides formed by the rotting of organic matter containing such sulfurous amino acids as cysteine.
Though
The
Copper is the most chemically reactive numismatic metal used in the U.S., and it and its alloys — bronze (primarily copper and tin) and brass (primarily copper and zinc) — usually turn from red to a dark and fairly unattractive brown. But copper can turn green as well (sometimes called verdigris). Sometimes copper and its alloys can
Some lovers of early U.S. cents (large cents dating 1793 to 1857) love the look of
on copper and its alloys is often called
Ancient bronze coins can
Gold, the least chemically reactive metal, aside from dulling slightly generally stays the way it is over even thousands of years. But the copper or silver that modern gold coins is typically alloyed with can tone, turning the color an attractive deep orange.
Some gold coins over time
Ancient gold coins, when unearthed, can be covered with encrustations (dirt, grease, organic matter, salts, etc.)
generally tones only slightly, typically becoming hazy gray though sometimes light golden or pale blue.
Aluminum (aluminium to the Brits and most of the rest of the world) typically tones a dull, unattractive gray.
The color of the
Different coin types tone in different ways.
The same coin types can also tone in different ways. The
Many unattractively
Artificial
Because attractively
This motivates some people to artificially tone, or doctor, coins. Other times coin doctors artificially tone a coin to hide hairlines from a prior cleaning, scratches, contact marks, or even repair
The difference between natural
Most people, however, regard
Coin collectors generally prefer modern coins to have natural, untampered surfaces (collectors of
Some collectors are afraid of
To be
Circular
Colors that blend together out of sequence. With naturally
Wild “circus” colors — on 90 percent silver coins, for instance, army green, bright pumpkin orange, and robin-egg blue.
According to
The
The
The
The
Among mint collectors, tone is about adenine controversial as market marking. Some like tone, some don ‘t, some tone is real, some is not.As a general govern, toned coins tend to be preferred more by advanced collectors than beginning collectors, while coins that look the like way they looked when they came from the Mint tend to be preferred more by newcomers. “ people buy the color, experience, biography of the coin, not just the technical grade, ” says Bob Campbell, former ANA president and coin dealer who sells tone coins. “ Beginning collectors like blazing white coins. More promote collectors like beautifully toned coins. “ There are exceptions to this, of course, with some advanced collectors preferring their argent coins blast white. Both tone and untoned coins have their attractions, though the attraction of a beautifully toned coin is undeniable.A beautifully toned mint is a coin that has aged well. The brilliant age of silver, in detail, is analogous to the brilliant age of deciduous leaves every year, in the right climates, before they turn brown university, the bright yellows and reds of the fall ‘s leaf. This doesn ‘t constantly happen with either leaves or silver. You need the mighty environment. When it does happen, it pleases the eye. Color is simply more appeal than gray.The appreciation of tone is frequently a sensibility that comes with prison term, similar to appreciating the relatively small differences in uncirculated grades, say between a 64 and a 66. When you beginning start out, a coin with toning looks old or unnatural. then you begin to appreciate the sometimes fantastic ways that time can paint a beautiful picture on coins. Toning is precisely the numismatic means of saying tarnish. ironically, like corrode on iron, toning on eloquent and bronze is a form of corrosion. What happens with silver and bronze is like to what happens with iron, only it ‘s a slower work with bronze and an even slower process with argent. Like rust, the toning on coins gets blockheaded over time.Eventually bronze and silver coins, over possibly hundreds of thousands of years depending on the chemical constitution of their environment, will transform into 100 percentage of the reactive products, as the toning becomes thick and thick until it becomes the stallion coin. The chemical reactions won ‘t stop here, as entropic forces cause the material to become more and more random and disordered until it ‘s returned to the Earth. Dust to dust.Not all tone is beautiful. With some coins toning can indeed be brilliantly and spectacularly colored. With other coins toning can alone subtly enhance center appeal. With still other coins, toning can be blue, streaked, splotchy, patched, odd, or otherwise surly, making the coin expression like an algae-stained end from the Blue Lagoon. Because such tone when extreme is considered environmental damage, the top grade services won ‘t grade these coins. Toning is an revision of the chemical constitution and color of a coin ‘s surface. It takes place naturally over time as the metallic element reacts with chemicals in its environment, typically to versatile sulfur-based compounds. Or it can be induced artificially, and more cursorily. natural toning takes place more quickly in a warm and more humid environment.Some contest that not all coins tone, silver or otherwise. If sealed in an airtight environment, the surfaces of a coin will deplete sulfur and other chemicals around it and stop tone after that. Intercept Shield mint holders are designed to intercept and neutralize sulfur and other contaminants and frankincense prevent toning MetalsNumismatic metals tone in different ways. Silver coins as a unharmed tone more beautifully than those made of other metals. Silver, exposed to the correct environmental influences — to little amounts of hydrogen sulphur in the air out or larger amounts in albums, envelopes, canvas bags, newspaper rolls, leather wallets or purses, rubber bands, and some glues and paints — can naturally turn subtle or sometimes brilliant shades of yellow, magenta, greenish blue, and early colors before finally turning black. The toning on silver is typically silver sulfide.Ancient silver coins are much black when excavate, the black surfaces typically caused by the sulfides formed by the waste of organic matter containing such sultry amino acids as cysteine.Though toning on eloquent is most much caused by sulfur, the word tone is sometimes used to describe other color on the come on of a coin, even stains or dirt. Silver can react with early substances such as chlorides in dirt, producing eloquent chloride or “ horn silver, ” which typically appears as an unattractive black, grey, purple, or brown stain that projects slightly above the airfoil of the coin and smears easily.The tone of silver coins is partially a factor of the other metals the eloquent is alloyed with, peculiarly copper. Ninety percentage silver coins ( most circulating U.S. coins ) tone differently than sterling flatware ( british coins ), triple nine-fine eloquent ( american Silver Eagles ), ancient silver coins, and most global silver coins. Silver coins can turn green from the copper they ‘re typically alloyed with, the green resulting from copper carbonate or copper chloride, though this happens more frequently with universe and ancient coins that have a higher copper content than U.S. coins.Copper is the most chemically reactive numismatic metallic element used in the U.S., and it and its alloys — bronze ( primarily copper and tin ) and brass ( primarily copper and zinc ) — normally turn from red to a blue and reasonably unattractive brown. But bull can turn green american samoa well ( sometimes called verdigris ). Sometimes copper and its alloys can pick up multiple subtle and attractive shades of loss, brown, green, blue, and yellow.Some lovers of early U.S. cents ( boastfully cents dating 1793 to 1857 ) love the look of tone copper. “ Old copper, like beauty, appears to possess a sealed intrinsic timbre or charm which for many people is irresistible, ” said Dr. William Sheldon in his 1958 book Penny Whimsy. But the marketplace as a whole prefers red. early copper coins are more valuable if naturally red and untoned than red-brown, which in twist are more valuable than brown. Toning on copper and its alloy is much called patina, though all tone is a type of patina, or coating. Brown or black patina on bull is caused by copper oxide, cupric oxide, or cupric oxide, green or bluish green by copper sulfate or bull sulfides, and green blue by copper carbonate. “ Bronze disease, ” which appears as a powdery green or bluish green on ancient bronze coins and consists of cupric chloride or cupric chloride and hydrochloric acerb, can eat away a coin ‘s surface.Ancient bronze coins can pick up an attractive “ earthen ” or “ desert backbone ” patina. This arenaceous beige appearance over all or separate of the mint ‘s coat results from the deposition of microscopic grains of silicate from sand or arenaceous soil.Gold, the least chemically reactive alloy, apart from dulling slightly generally stays the way it is over even thousands of years. But the copper or argent that modern gold coins is typically alloyed with can tone, turning the color an attractive deep orange.Some gold coins over time pick up elusive light brown or orange-brown streaks or spots, called bull spots or carbon spots ( though carbon plays no function in their formation ), which may have been caused by incompletely mix bull in the admixture, by airborne contaminants, or by person having breathed or sneezed on the coin. Unless copper spots are particularly blatant and offputting, they doesn ‘t affect the value of gold coins. Toned gold coins with a “ cloudy ” affect are normally artificially toned, according to Campbell Ancient amber coins, when unearth, can be covered with encrustations ( crap, dirt, organic matter, salts, etc. ) equitable like other coins. Gold coins uncovered from transport wrecks can have minutely pitted surfaces from the corrosive effects of salt water. such coins can look like roll counterfeits. Nickel broadly tones only slenderly, typically becoming brumous gray though sometimes light aureate or pale blue. Nickel coins can besides pick up color as a leave of PVC contamination from being stored in soft vinyl flips. On nickel, angry rainbow tone, in which multiple colors progress from one to another, is normally artificial.Aluminum ( aluminum to the Brits and most of the stay of the world ) typically tones a dull, unattractive gray.The coloring material of the toning on any coin is a factor of how advanced and thick the film of tone is. early toning on flatware coins is yellow, with the colors progressing to magenta ( purple red ) to cyan ( green gloomy ) to black. The color results from “ thin film deflection ” or “ thin movie noise, ” the refract of different wavelengths of light waves through the film. This is the lapp tinge consequence that appears with soap bubbles and when a sparse layer of oil lays on top of a pool of water.Different coin types tone in different ways. Morgan dollars tone more beautifully than Peace dollars because the planchets of the latter were given a more concentrated acid bath at the Mint. Walking Liberty half dollars tend to acquire unbalanced tone as a leave of their asymmetrical design. many commemorative halves from the 1930s have “ pill tone ” resulting from their original cardboard holders.The lapp coin types can besides tone in different ways. The tone of any given coin depends on a host of unlike factors, including how it was handled ( vegetable oil and soil from fingers and hands ), how it was stored ( canvass bag, newspaper bag, envelope, exposure to rubber dance band or glue, cardboard album, cardboard 2×2 holder, etc. ), the timbre of the external environment ( heavy polluted, high humidity, sunlight, outgassing from unlike types wooden cabinets and chest of drawers, etc. ), and external contaminants ( different types of dust and crap, dirt, spilled coffee or beer, rain, moisture from sneezes and breath, and early stains whose consequences may be blatant or elusive ) .Many unattractively toned argent coins are “ dip ” in a thiourea solution, such as E-Z-Est Coin Cleaner, to remove the tone. If done properly, a white dip mint can be attractive. If over-dipped, a high-grade mint loses its luster and takes on an unattractive flat, lifeless look. If a coin international relations and security network ‘t rinsed by rights after dipping, it can pick up unattractive descry or staining over time. even by rights dipped coins don ‘t tone the lapp way late as coins with original surfaces, typically turning grey quite than colorful.Artificial tone Because beautifully toned silver coins are desirable to many collectors, they normally carry a premium and sometimes a huge premium. This is particularly true with coins that have “ monster toning ” ( wild tone ), “ target tone ” or “ bullet train tone ” ( colors that change from the coin ‘s periphery in toward to the center ), “ rainbow tone ” ( multiple colors ), or “ changeable tone ” ( shimmering, with the coloring material model varying with the viewing angle ). such coins are even graded higher by the grading services, which “ grocery store grade ” according to a coin ‘s overall center appeal.This motivates some people to artificially tone, or doctor, coins. other times coin doctors artificially tone a coin to hide hairlines from a prior clean, scratches, contact marks, or tied repair work The remainder between lifelike tone and artificial tone international relations and security network ‘t always clear. Most tone results from human intervention ( which is one definition of “ artificial ” ), from placing a coin in reach with a man-made fabric such as a U.S. Mint canvas bag, an erstwhile Wayte Raymond coin album, or a traditional felt-lined coin cabinet.Most people, however, respect toning as artificial when there ‘s a consider attack to impart it over a short-change time, such as baking a mint in an oven ( alone or in a potato ), blasting it with a blow out common mullein, placing it in a cover bowling ball with crush couple heads ( these coins smell ! ), blowing cigarette or cigar smoke on it, thumbing it with nuzzle grease, or soaking or painting it with bleach, acid, or a sulfur-containing chemical. The grey sphere involves measuredly toning a coin with longer-acting techniques such as setting it for respective months on a windowpane sill in the sunday, placing it on a block of oak woodwind in the sunday, wrapping it in tissue paper, or sealing it in an ordinary high-sulfur envelope.Coin collectors by and large prefer modern coins to have natural, untampered surfaces ( collectors of ancient coins are much more tolerant ). The grading services do a good if not arrant speculate of detecting artificial tone ( AT ), which is one of the reasons many collectors buy older, higher-end coins in slab. Among mint doctors, indication of a job good done is getting their AT coins in the slab of the top scaling services, PCGS or NGC, which happens not infrequently.Some collectors are afraid of tone coins, says Mark Salzberg, president of the united states of the coin-grading service NGC. “ It just doesn ‘t make any sense, ” he wrote in an article titled “ The Virtues of Toned Coins, ” which appears at the Web site Coin-Gallery Online. “ It ‘s lone natural that old coins, particularly flatware pieces, acquire respective degrees and shades of discolor over meter. This is one of the most capture qualities of age-old coins that distinguish them from more holocene issues, and I believe collectors who don ‘t already do therefore should learn to appreciate the virtues of tone coins. “ To be bonny, collectors have legitimate lawsuit for being concerned about some toned coins. In his video recording How to Tell Artificial Toning on Coins, available for lend from the American Numismatic Association, Campbell says the following are astatine tip-offs : circular toning spots resulting from the beading of the toning liquid that was used.Colors that blend together out of sequence. With naturally toned coins, the progression is chicken then magenta ( pink red ) then cyan ( bluish green ). Toning that appears only on the tops of the letter and devices and not in the coin ‘s recesses.Wild “ circus ” colors — on 90 percentage flatware coins, for case, army green, undimmed pumpkin orange, and robin-egg blue.According to PCGS ‘s book Coin Grading and Counterfeit Detection, the come are other indications of artificial toning The toning floats on the open of the coin rather than having depth and being bonded to the metal.The tone occurs over hairlines or early marks.The toning exhibits bright “ crayon ” colors.The tone has a amber, smoky appearance, indicating it was caused by cigarette or cigar fastball.
