Does every old envelope have sulfur in it? How can you tell?

I feel like film director, Alfred Hitchcock, when he got a lengthy memo from producer, David O. Selznick, when he was making the film, Rebecca. Years later the great director commented that he had not yet finished reading the long memo, which Selznick was noted for writing.

I will leave this topic with this comment. If you use the word “corrosion” in the description of a piece you are looking to sell, you will either end up selling it at a low price or not sell it at all.

 

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To summarize the advice given: Most all of the paper that you get today
has sulfur in it. Archival safe/quality does not. Practice with a Kennedy
half or a Franklin, not used ones but Uncirculated ones. If the toning/
patina is ugly on these coins what are you going to do? If you are asking
a question on how to tone a coin, then you more than likely are not
experienced enough to restore them. I would find an old album, place the
desired coin in it and place the album in an area where your grand
children can find it YEARS from now. Pretty toning takes 30+ years not
a couple of months.

 

If you asked me that question 15 years ago (the coin was cooking then), I would have said, 'abysmal failure'. Any kind of oxidation would drive me over the edge. It has been only since I've joined these boards that I don't go bonkers anymore.

Also: It wasn't my intent, at that time, to incur any toning. Gotta say, though, that the condition can grow on ya. No amount of planning ever replaced 'dumb luck'......

 

Sorry, I don't like heavily toned coins, and this one to me is so ugly I wouldn't even give it a first glance, even if it is a Morgan.

 

That's all right John. No need for apology...........

 

Most folks would think that Littleton albums are archival quality. I was the second owner of a blast white set of Roosevelt dimes that were put in the album blemish free. When the man looked at his coins a few years later ALL of them were toned. That disgusted him and he sold the set to me for melt. After owning it for five years I placed the set on consignment at the local coin shop and within two weeks it sold for $300. I put OBO on it and nobody tried to get a "bargain". Each to his own. That buyer may now own a bunch of slabbed toned coins. Good for him. My markup profit was over 300%.

 

And THAT is the difference between AT and NT, intent. If you put the coin in a storage situation with the INTENT that it will tone, hopefully with nice colors, that is AT. If you place it in that same storage situation, simple intending it to be stored and it acquires toning there is no INTENT and that is NT. The problem is there is no way to look at a toned coin and divine whether it was stored with intent or not.

 

The albums may be archival quality, but if you store the album under improper conditions the coins may still tone simply because the album is not airtight. Archival quality simply means that the coins will not react with the album itself.

 

Older manila envelopes and manila folders both contain sulphur. When you open the package you can smell it. If you are doing this for your own pleasure don't worry about it. If you intend to sell the finished product guilt free just take clear photos and mark it make offer or best offer. Odds are that most buyers will dip it anyway. I wouldn't but thousands do. I could see the benefit of dipping an AU or MS coin but when they dip G, VG, F I can't see what they thought they would get by doing this.

 

And that's the 'fine' line........

What if I purposely put the coin into the manila envelope with hopes of achieving colorful toning. Who would know? Of course (coarse), I would, but who else? The fact is that in order to get such results (employing this method) it would take a number of years, and most of the 'spin doctors' don't want to wait that long to get results.

 

"I don't know how to tell what envelopes have sulfur because most sold now are "sulfur free"...was there a year before all paper had it? I was thinking about buying an old used envelope with a stamp on it to prove how old it is maybe?"

Sulfites were used in making pulp paper from the mid 1800s. Before, paper was made from cloth or other plant fibers and was rather scarce. One reference stated about the 1850-60s. I have a few stamped envelopes of that era, and the acidic ink has eaten through the paper which is a grocery bag brown and crumbles easily.
Jim

 

MS65 Star ⭐️

 

IMO the toning on your 1947 Half is beautiful. If someone could tell me how to produce toning like that in a short period of time, please tell me! I promise not to sell them.

 

If you could find a what to produce that look consistently, you could make a fortune.

 

For a while. Till the market an or TPG'S wised up shut you down.

 

Many years ago, when I was buying coins from Gimbels Department Store, they had a system where their coins were in two envelopes. The inner one contained the coin and went with the customer. The outer one was bigger and was sent back to headquarters to maintain the centralized inventory system. It would be re-filled with another coin in the same grade.

The inner envelopes were white and were made of plain paper. I found that if I kept a coin in them that it would tone often to a decent color. I never got the “rainbow” results that people want so much, but the coins toned down to a natural look.

You can talk about ethics all you want, but if the toning is attractive and can’t be detected by experts, what it the problem? I was not covering up cleaning hairlines or that some of thing. It was only a restoration process that made a circulated coin more pleasing to the eye, and it usually took a few to several years.

 

Certain sorts of envelope toning on certain sorts of coins is very distinctive. Here's an envelope toned Franklin. This blueish purplish pink is a "standard" mix of colors that Franklins will have often toned if they had been put in an envelope years ago.




Peace dollars in envelopes will often pick up a pinkish hue.