Hypothetical question about toning

Lets just suppose that someone who has a strong background in chemisty was experimenting extensively with doctoring coins, in order to better understand these things. They then discovered a way to create beautiful, even toning on silver coins, that experts could not even detect as being man made. Would it be a terrible thing, or a good thing to reveal this knowledge to the numismatic community, and why?

PS. Please feel free to move this thread to general discussion if it is off topic.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

Well I doubt if the experts would look upon it in a faverable light LOL after all it would mean that every toned coin that they had graded over the period he had been doing this would be suspect.

De Orc :kewl:

 

This is a very interesting thought! I have seen ads for a chemical compound that has been designed with doing that very thing. Whether or not the experts can tell if this "artifical toning" has accured with this product is not known to me. But this does bring up the concept.

I love toned coins and have some that are surely "natural toned" via the content that they were in when I purchased them. I love seeing the color in the coin (perferably BU). I also can understand why collectors are paying the premium that is now associated with purchasing them.

Making coins toned almost over night might lesson the amount of demand for toned coins, yet if it is not detectable it would throw doubt on those coins that have been naturally toned, would it not?
My problem with this method of producing toned coins is that if I knew the coin had been atrificaly toned no matter how beautiful would I still treasure it as much as one I knew took decades to produce?

 

zaneman:
What a great question! My initial reaction was that: Of course it is okay.
Then I read the two following responses, and then re-read them.
Now, I am not sure.
However, I have 'toned' conis myself: by leaving them in Wayte Raymond albums for a couple of years, packed tightly with other albums, and the toning that started was great. I did the same with some old brown coin envelopes. In both cases, it was by accident, and now I have some toned coins.
Was this an artificial way to tone coins?
Is this man made?
No answers, but a lot of good questions.
Frank

 

zaneman,

I have to agree with most of the others and say that artificiially toning coins is a bad thing! We all know that it is done (sort of hush...hush) but as long that it is not announced and declared to the coin collecting and selling Community, it has not had a real adverse affect on coin values and grading. To announce, declare and sell a substance that will tone coins and is undetectable, may cause a real adverse affect on their values and grading prctices or standards. Just to give you an example of an adverse affect on coin values and grading, I will offer the following: There are three dates (1896-O, 1900-O and 1902-O) of Morgan Silver Dollars that PCGS and probably several other TPG's will not Certify and Grade if they are the "Micro O" Varieties. The reason for this, is that there were so many of these counterfeited that PCGS and some other TPG's have branded and declared that all specimens of these three dated Morgans with Micro O Mintmarks are Counterfeits and that they will no longer Certify and Grade any of these. With all of the other known "Micro O" Variety Morgans and others being found only recently, it is reasonable to believe that there are genuine Morgan Silver Dollars with these specific dates that have the" Micro O" Mintmarks. Therefore, if you have a genuine one of these, don't ever expect to have it Certified and Grade by PCGS and several of the other TPG's. This has adversely affected the value and any possible grading of any genuine specimens, if they do actually exist which I believe is highly possible and thus, has adversely affected the owner(s) of such specimens.


Frank

 

To cheat or not to cheat that is the question? I am not a chemist, so my observation may be totally inaccurate. I suspect artificial toning IS detectable. You may need a microscope to detect the fake toning, but if man can do it, it can be detected in some way.

Think about it this way, how much pleasure will you have if you take your BU coins and drop whatever chemical it is on them to see pretty rainbows. At first it will be cool, but then boring and no longer desirable. Also, this chemical additive is cheap, which is why I suspect it can be detected, maybe even under 10x loupe.

I have several coins in manilla envelopes toning now. What will they look like in 10 years? I am very exceited to find out.

If everyone toned their coins artificially then at least three things would happen. 1. Values would go down. 2. Untoned coins may go up in value, and 3. Detection of artificial toning would get better.

Cheat if you want, it's up to you, but then you are not a numismatist. You are merely trying to make a profit.

Delawarejones

 

I have a simple thing to add to this. IT SHOULD BE ILLEAGLE TO SELL A COIN AS NT IF ITS AT. If you, I know it sounds harsh to say. But the fact remaines that if you buy a coin thinking the tonning is natural then it should be.

As for cheating, Well the biggest issue with that is, Is it really cheating? I mean most of the toning out there is concidered natural and is the result of sitting in a paper roll or from a reaction to the phelt like materail in things like the US proof and some mint type sets. Also Lets not for get the A LOT id morgans have crazy toning from 2 by 2 card board holders.

I my self feel that ALLMOST any toning that has happened to a tone OVER MAY YEARS, ALLMOST no matter how you had it stored is natural so some extent.

I knew a guy that kept pretty much his whole collection os plastic cased type sets, in a desk droar for many years with a plastic bag of dead plantmatter close to them with no intent at all to tone the coins in there. But the silver was toned SO NICE that i just can explaine it. Just awsome!

Natesdad

 

If a way to beautifully tone silver coins were revealed to the collecting community, a huge number of collectors would be angry. After all, people now pay HUGE premiums for common coins with crazy colors, sometimes 10X what the coin would normally sell for without toning. In my opinion, revealing this would be a good thing, since the [NATURALLY] toned coin market is way too volatile and vulnerable. The collecting community has seen 'coin docters' who can tone coins, albeit by artificial means, AND manage to get some of those AT coins slabbed by top-tier TPG's. Even after that, many toned coin collectors refuse to believe that the beautifully and uniquely toned they collect can be duplicated by some bored guy with a chemist's degree and a [insert your preferred method for toning coins here].

 

HERESY!

 

All toning is just basic chemistry in action. Theoretically, it shouldn't matter whether it is deliberately controlled or accidental. Personally, I like the look of natural grey toning on older silver coins; but I'm not sure whether this toning is "better" or "worse" than more colorful toning. There are a lot of areas in numismatics where judgments that affect value are subjective. But it seems almost certain that the more available "beautifully" toned coins become, the less they will be worth.

 

I believe the process should be wholly released to the numismatic community. As with computer security, this should be an open process. If the methods are unknown and cannot be reproduced, they cannot be studied. If they can be studied, perhaps a method to determine if the toning is natural or unnatural can be formulated.

Openness is best.

Fish

 

Also, I believe the terms 'Artificial toning' and 'Natural toning' are very inaccurate. All toning is natural, and some toning is accelerated. Secondly, since a coin is not a natural object, how do you classify tarnish ( ) on its surface as being 'Natural' or 'Artificial?'

 

\\Hmm, now we just need 'someone' to buy this stuff and let us know how it works, and how many dealers they are able to fool.
(Any volunteers, Fish?)

 

And just what makes you think such a method hasn't already been dscovered? As you postulated, if they can't be told from the naturally toned coins then any toned coin out there could be one of them and there would be no way to prove otherwise.

But would it be a good thing to openly reveal such knowledge? No, because doing so would beeifit no one and would damage a great many. More likely it would wind up being closely held and used to create a amall trickle of stunning toned coins that would slowly come onto the market and sell for silly money enriching the chemist. From time to time a small hoard of toned pieces could be "discovered" to keep the maket stirred up (Think something similar to the Peacock Hoard or the Battlecreek hoard) From time to time you would stop production and let the ones you have already made be absorbed and disappear from the market. (Too many would alert people that something is up. By the way have you noticed that there are a TON more toned coins available on the market than there were say even five years ago?) Then you could start over. Done right you could stay rolling in clover for the rest of your life. But if the secret was released, you would have thousands or tens of thousands of people "trying it out" resulting in HUGE numbers of toned coins suddenly appearing on the market and the value of EVERY coin with any color on it would plummet because all would be suspect. This would result in a market backlash that demanded only absolutely blast white coins, dip would sell by the 55 gallon drum and almost every coin out there would get stripped. The toning knowledge would fall out of favor and eventually be forgotten except by a few. Then after a few years, a few coins with just a little color would start appearing. Then eventually people would start talking about how coins aren't naturally blast white after all that time and some toning shows that they are original. and as time past more and more exotic toned pieces would be discovered, maybe some hoards of toned pieces etc. Lather, rinse, repeat.

I see the current gah-gah fad over toned coins as the third cycle since I started collecting.

Fine, How do you enforce it? In order to do so you're going to have to be able to PROVE that the coin is AT and that there is no way it could possibly have arrived at that color/look by natural means. Since the oxides and sulfides that make up the toning layers are chemically identical whether they formed over twenty minutes or a hundred and twenty years that is going to be a tall order.

 

It already is my friend, it already is.

However, sad to say, like so many other laws attempting to regulate social behaviour, the designation of fraud as a crime doesn't acheive its goals.

Criminal fraud consists of obtaining something of value by means of misrepresentation. Misrepresentation involves making a statement of fact - not opinion - which is (1) false and (2) known to be false when made or made without a reasonable ground for believing it to be true.

In orther words, if a given coin has a market value of $100 with natural toning, and a market value of $10 with artificial toning, then getting someone to pay $15 for it by telling them that they are getting a $100 coin for that price would be fraud whether the seller knew it was AT, or didn't know whether it was AT or NT and didn't have the expertise to tell the difference, and wasn't relying of the advice of such an expert. Of course, that presupposes that an NT coin does have a greater value than the same coin, in the same grade, which has been artificially toned.

Besides, I'm not aware of any fixed and universally accepted rule on exactly where the dividing line is between AT and NT. Without such a standard, how does a prosecutor convince a jury beyond a reasonable doubt that a particular coin was in fact artificially toned?

Another problem is that simply stating "In my opinion this coin has natural toning" would insulate everyone in the world selling that coin except for the person who personally toned it, since you could never prove that anyone else was lying about what their opinion was.

Criminal fraud is one of the most unprosecuted crimes on the books for the simple reason that pvoving it beyond a reasonable doubt is a herculean task and prosecutors generally focus their resources on violent crime and slam dunk cases.

 

Interesting thoughts everyone. I'll share mine now.

I would not like to see something like this come to market or become common knowledge. I think it would hurt the market, as well as hurt those who have paid large premiums for legitamately toned coins, and most importantly it is simply dishonest.

It seems to me that coin doctors are constantly improving their craft. They have beenn toning coins in old pcgs holders (which aren't airtight), they laser coins, artificially frost coins, wax coins, haze coins, remove planchet streaks, etc etc.

 

*Shrug* Okay, I'll bite. What is it and where is it?

Fish

 

I'll have to think about this issue some more. For now I'll keep an open mind. I don't like the idea of doing anything to the coins at all. If removing toning from coins by dipping is wrong, AT is almost "undipping" them by applying toning, so that should be equally wrong -- but probably not worse.

I agree that lying about how the condition was achieved [natural or unnatural] is wrong, whether it is AT or dipping. Calling a coin "blast white" instead of "artificially untoned" would seem to be a crime of equal proportions to undisclosed AT. I think the premiums paid for some forms of toning are ridiculous, and the people paying are making themselves tagets for the less than perfect honesty crowd.

 

Okay, I will agree that all toning is natural, it can be accelerated with additives.

I have purposely enveloped several coins to encourage toning. This process will take years to complete.

The idea of taking a liquid (additive) and toning a coin overnight is repugnant. There are additives that can be purchased that create wild rainbows. I have seen pictures, not good ones, but nonetheless the coins look good (if rainbows are your bag). The only people who would do this are out for a fast buck, and I suspect if you looked at the coin under 10x or better you could probably detect the difference.

As it goes with all raw coins, thoroughly inspect, just like you would with a car. Buyer beware, always.

Delawarejones