Why are 95% of my mint-sealed sets toned?!?!

Discussion in 'Coin Chat' started by Atarian, Nov 14, 2011.

  1. phdunay

    phdunay Member

    I have a really weird toned coin from a mint set. Here's some pics:

    1969 Wash. Quarter.jpg 1969 Quarter Toning Pic.jpg

    And wouldn't you swear that eagle was incuse?
     
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  3. I find the coins that are being minted today are of the worse made of any iv seen.Ive found pennys almost eaten up from the weather .Ive dug quaters 3 inchs deep in the ground that all of the outer content is gone.But iv dug indian heads and silver dollars that have little wrong with them .Id say its more in the cheep metail they use today in coins.Treasure diggers of tomorrow will lose instrest fast in digging up the junk iv unearthed.I would also say its the metal being used overe and over that causes many of the problems in todays coins.
     
  4. cladking

    cladking Coin Collector

    Yes, this is the mottled corrosion to which I referred earlier. It is very difficult to remove and this is the last step before it becomes impossble to remove.

    I used to go through many many hundreds of mint sets looking for the finest sets and I had 20 of these sitting in a safety deposit box for many years. I was just shocked when I found all the clad like this and the silver even worse. I was able to save most of the coins with a series of soaks in acetone, isopropyl, and denatured alcohol. Many were ruined and some were unsavable. It was truly heartbreaking but a big relief when a few started coming out of the soaks in pristine condition.

    Some of them actually look pretty nice like this and the corrosion hides most of the marking. The services won't grade them and label these "PVC damage".
     
  5. GDJMSP

    GDJMSP Numismatist Moderator

    It's not the metal that causes the differences - it's the soil. Some soil is very corrosive, other soil is hardly corrosive at all. Some coins can be buried for a year or two and just eaten up. Other coins can be buried for 200 years and hardly have a spec on them. This is not unusual.
     
  6. jloring

    jloring Senior Citizen

    It seems every time I get discouraged with some of the threads on CT, one like this comes along. Just wanted to say "thanks".
     
  7. Kasia

    Kasia Got my learning hat on

    Question. Do glassine envelopes hurt coins?
     
  8. phdunay

    phdunay Member

    I'm going to keep that set the way it is, I like how cool the toning looks, the other coins have the same sort of effect as this, but not as radical.
     
  9. GDJMSP

    GDJMSP Numismatist Moderator

    They can, but then you never know what some people mean when they use certain terms. Glassine was a product developed back around 1915. It's actually a semi-transparent paper, and most paper products are bad for coins. I certainly wouldn't recommend anybody using them.
     
  10. Info Sponge

    Info Sponge Junior Member

    Won't the toning progress if you leave it as it is?
     
  11. phdunay

    phdunay Member

    Yeah, but I'm not worried about it, I got the set for the price of the silver half. It has had over 40 years to get to where it is, but I would like to see what happens to it now.
     
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