Why are toned coins so popular?

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Thank you.

 

Otherwise known as - mass self-delusion. A lot of coin people have deluded themselves that they can somehow hold toning in stasis at precisely the most attractive point in the process and can arrest the process right there. 1) It can't be done, and 2) It especially can't be done with copper alloys.

Yes, it can be slowed down, but not stopped.

 

If it won't change in your life time for all intensive purposes it has been stopped

 

Doug, he means perceptible change. A rainbow toned coin encapsulated in TPG plastic and stored properly in a climate controlled low humidity atmosphere will not experience a perceptible change in our lifetimes.

Furthermore, rainbow toned coins are the product of a sulfur laden source such as paper, coin album, or canvas bag. Once the coin has been removed from the sulfur source, the rainbow toning stops. You are describing toning that results via hydrogen sulfide gas in the atmosphere which is already an extremely slow process without the assistance of heat & humidity.

 

Lehigh said it better than I could have.

 

They're popular because they can look amazing and they aren't a dime a dozen.
I could go on eBay right now and search for a MS 1938-S Jefferson nickel and have THOUSANDS of plain old white ones to choose from.
Good luck going on and finding one like this:

 

I simply have not found what you say here to be true. I have so-called MS65RD copper (1909 cents, all varieties) in top-end (NGC) plastic, and not only isn't it RD, it's not even RB. These babies are pure BN today. They've been in the NGC plastic in my collection for 20 years now. Not much of a lifetime, that.

I realize that people who deal in "toners" have a business model to protect, but frankly, that's not my problem. The fundamental instability of toners is.

 

Baloney! 1955 PR67CAM nickel. Rainbow toned. Changed not just perceptibly, but RADICALLY in under 5 years.

 

Kurt, you live out among the farms and horses and buggies, right? Lots of nice, fresh, organic fertilizer being distributed on a regular basis? I remember that smell very well, and I remember what chemicals are associated with it. (Indoles and organic acids and cresols, while stinky, don't contain sulfur -- but H2S rides along with them.)

 

Yes, now I do. But during the period of the 5 years when the nickel went radical, I was in a suburb of Reading known as Wyomissing. Tres chic. Tres upscale.

 

Ah, well, it was worth a shot. Any industrial emissions? High-sulfur diesel? Rich diet?

 

Well, the town was founded by Nazi sympathizers and Taylor Swift still lived here then, but other than that...

I have owned numerous toned coins over well more than 25 years, and not a single one is stable. They all change all the time. One thing we do have is unbearably oppressive summer humidity. Not New Orleans style, but bad enough.

 

Doug's right on this. (Troubling, right? ) The key is to hold a "toner" for quite a few years and NOT keep looking at it. I promise you that when you take it out, you will barely recognize it. It WILL HAVE changed, and not by just a little bit, either.

My 1955 proof nickel is the outlier. No other slabbed toned coin I ever had changed as much as that one did as fast as it did. But they all do.

 

I was talking about silver coinage. Copper is extremely reactive which is why the TPG's won't guarantee the RD designation indefinitely.

I'm not protecting a business model, just sharing my experience with rainbow toned coinage, which is extensive compared to most other collectors, including yourself. There is no instability in collecting toned coins. If you have proof, then show it.

 

I purchased this coin in 2002 via Heritage auction.



I sold it in 2012 and there was no perceptible change in the appearance of the coin.



As far as your proof nickel Kurt, have you ever considered that the coin was artificially toned and that the reactive agent that caused the toning was still on the coin? Typically, when you see a toner turn, it was an AT coin to begin with. I've never seen a bag toned Morgan Dollar change significantly if stored properly.

 

Coins will simply not tone in a vacuum. TPG containers are not vacuum sealed. They are sonically sealed at the facility along with the air. It's hard to maintain a vaccum at 1ATM, or 15 PSI of pressure bearing down on us. Another way to prevent toning is to sonically seal the coin's with one of the noble gasses. And let's face it the TPG's could do a better job of sealing holders. The amount of air contained in a slab will not turn a coin from Red to brown, without a leak in it. The new and older holders both have leaks. If you don't believe me take your slab and dunk it into liquid 2-methyl butane and you will see that your slab is porus indeed.

Our Declaration of Independence is stored in a glass container filled with pure inert Argon gas .

I personally use a vacuum sealer with non reactive plastic to slow down any toning with my Dansco and Whitman folders. It's worked great so far. I open them once a year insert the coins of the year and back into the vaccun bag they go.

The only way to insure that your coins will truly be protected for all time is to send them into orbit. But for the high end collector hopefully someone will invent a holder that doesn't leak with something other than air, like Argon inside it. Cheers to the future inventor of this product. I'll submit one or two at a $200 submission fee. I don't know if I would invest in such a company if it incorporated. Hopefully it'll just be a LLC.

 

Vaccum sealer protected. No PVC.