How would one intentionally tone a coin? I wouldn't do it to any rare coin I have so stop sweating lol....I just want to fool around with some everyday pocketchange and see what I can come up with. :hammer:
Throw them in the oven. They will tone very fast. Take them and put them between two pieces of wood and put them in your garage for a few months.
toning More "natural" ways to tone a coin (takes time, weeks to years) 1) put coin in older coin album with sulfer based cardboard or paper. 2) put in paper envelopes for storage. 3) put it on a windowsill in sunlight some questionable ways: 4) bake in oven 5) put in chemical, like bleach. (test on cheap coins first) Some of the most beautiful toned coins were stored in old albums and are perfectly acceptable. Old Morgans were toned in the Treasury bags where they were stored in the vault, and highly sought after today. If you can reproduce that...... I have silver eagles that have acquired toning by placing in cheaper cardboard holders and it took less than a year to notice it. I don't advocate artificial toning by harsh chemical means. I believe that to be unethical. But once, I experimented with an old silver quarter that was cleaned. I tried to make it look old again by putting it in bleach. It made the coin grey again, but it wasn't anything like original wear. Just made the cleaning less noticeable. Some thoughts.
You can also try holding the coin over a open flame, like the stove top. I've gotten some crazy colored toning that way, especially on new Lincolns.
I don't know why someone would want to do that to a coin, but try holding it over an open flame or something hot, not your microwave! That will do something to the microwave.
It is not polite to answer a question with a question. That said, I wouldn't do it because a) it damages/ruins the coin, and b) it is dishonest to intentionally tone a coin then sell it (whether you sell it that way, or someone else who owns the coin after you). Now please answer my question -- why do you want to do this? What is your motivation? Just wondering...Mike
In French, there is an expression - "Le monde a l'envers". Not trying to be snooty here or anything, but it means "upside down world" or "anything is possible". When I see these threads on toning, I often wonder about a world that is "upside down". One in which people take Uncirculated coins and spend time wearing them down so they will look F12 or if you're really good, get it down to G4 with no rim nicks. Just a thought and sorry for side tracking. BTW, you can do a search here and find dozens of threads on the subject. Toning appears to be on the "menu du jour".
I doubt any of you would pay extra for a worn 1904 O Morgan but some of you may remember at time before 1962 when the government released bags of them and turned a key date into a common in what was then called BU. I doubt many of the 1962 find were honestly worn so an F example could be expected to have once been worth several times what MS64 is today. Stamp collectors face a situation where 90 cent 1857 issues are easier to find uncancelled and some collectors would like to have one that did honest service in the mails. Coin collecting is a bit odd compared to other hobbies considering the attention spent on things that never really circulated as coins. Collectors pay a premium for silver replicas of CuNi coins or a mintmark that never circulated. Like it or not, a 'coin' that had to be smuggled out of the mint was not really a coin. That doen't mean I'd throw out a 1933 $20 or 1913 V nickel but I can't accept them as coins in the strict sense of the word. Did you know that there are Roman restrikes? The Emperor Trajan had a series of copies of older varieties prepared bearing a special reverse legend. These are very rare today and the chance that they ever circulated at face value seems slim. To the best of my knowledge, none were slabbed.
Well come on guys...we all know (as we all just learned a couple weeks back) that there are self-imposed premiums placed on coins that are toned. He's a budding entrepeneur. On a serious note, this is why I refuse to acknowledge that toned coins are rightfully worth more...too much monkey business going on.
