So I put a Half Dollar on a hot woodstove for 18 hours (Experiment)

One of my friends tones Morgans by leaving them out and exposing them to months of cigarette smoke. Nice blue bands/waves. Your heat method looks splotchier. I dont mess with toning, except that time i left wheaties in an old whitman album to see what happens. They toned black.

 

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I don't imagine I'd need any electronic "sniffer" to pick up on one of those.

 

Think about how coins naturally tone, and that is the secret to toning properly. High heat is not the answer, and will always look artificial. Many of us here could you told you that in advance.

 

Chemicals are not the answer either, but yet I see a lot of coins in slabs(with straight grades) that are obviously chemically toned.

I have also seen some graded coins sell for big bucks because they are called "Monster" toned. A lot of these are all colors of the rainbow and look very similar to what silver can look like when heat is applied.

I tried a high heat approach because this is what I am familiar with. Having worked in the Art Casting industry for years, I know what heat will do to bronze and silver. We melted down 25lb bronze and silver ingots on a daily basis and poured the molten metal in molds. It was a very interesting and back breaking place to work, but an entirely different story.

When it comes to silver, all it would take is the proper heat applied correctly to achieve a "monster" toning rating that looks way more natural than any chemical could do. This is a point I have been trying to get across to toned coin collectors for a while now.

Having said that I haven't been able to achieve anything close to NT using the heat sources I have at home. As a result I am having a hard time proving it. Anyone with a home smelter could do it with a little practice though.

 

She's a Sagittarius, (direct in delivery, sometimes too direct) so yeah....straight line.

 

Get another half and try the microwave oven. On second thought, since aluminum can catch fire, don’t.

 

Kripes, that stuff is gonna cost ya. Take it from a fellow that has first hand experience........don't put bloody metal of any sort in an microwave oven

 

But if you do, film it!

 

No, that one would come back AT every single time. No question about it.

To the OP - your experiment can teach you valuable information about what to look for in AT coins. Stick to low value, common stuff and you can learn some useful things.

However, I highly recommend that you dip them afterwards, so that nobody is unintentionally deceived by your learning tools.