How to Tone Coins

@rzage

That is the case when most try it. That is why I always believed it was true because my early experiments proved it was also. Then I was shown a method conservators use and I told them they were nuts. They proved me wrong. It took several demonstrations and lots of treated coins and time under my scope to admit something I believed was impossible actually occurred and I saw/learned to do it.

I don't advise trying this at home w/o guidance + lots of practice. "Soda cleaned" coins are straight graded in TPGS's slabs but you/me probably cannot be sure 100% of the time. Most can recognize those that are done by an amateur.

 

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Are you pulling my leg? I need to look in a larger, unabridged dictionary.

 

Never tried it, but I have a thought in mind as to how to accomplish it. Scares the bejeezus out of me.

 

As to that large cent cI don't see any corrosion. But the surface has been completely stripped. And it's been a holder or album to retone halfway

 

Keep us posted on your results

 

John, will the aluminum foil and oven baking help on a silver coin that has been heavily polished. And is there any other conservation method that will help for polished silver coins.

 

Let John add to this but I'm having old experiments come back to mind: There is only one way to make a polished coin "presentable" and that is to roughen the surface down through the polish. Old timer's would carry the coin around in their pocket with a bunch of silver and nickel coins. Lots of worn out pockets I've been told. Long ago, I used a gem tumbler. You can achieve all sorts of finishes depending on the material you use to tumble the coin. Lapidary and some gun shops have them.

I have not played with a polished coin in twenty plus years though.

 

Yeah. I recently bought a UK 1806 1/2 penny in AU and when it came it had an unnatural purple hue. Why anyone would meddle with a nice coin is beyond me. Still a worthwhile purchase.

 

When cooking a meat loaf I'll stick a few coins in

 

Ever try wrapping them in bacon? Even if they don't tone you can market them as special "scratch n' sniff" editions

 

You don't "remove" polishing; it's a physical alteration, not a chemical one. Just like hairlines, the only way to remove a physical alteration like that is further physical alteration, in this case some time in your pocket with other coins. "Circulate" it.

Insider, I had in mind a somewhat "softer" solution in liquid suspension, using currents - convection currents or otherwise - to cause the contact. It would be far slower, but patience is the key to the difference between cleaning and conservation.

 

So basically wear . Just like putting it in your pocket you have to wear it down to new metal , or at least enough to take the hairlines away . Since it will lower the grade and grade straight it seems ok . But you still have to get below any hairlines or polishing and then let it retone . Still better to buy something you like up front but if it'll save an abused coin .

 

All truth. When it's "damaged," your only recourse is to "damage" it further. The idea of "retoning" is a completely different animal, though - the more a coin circulates, the less likely it is to tone at all. In many cases, what we see as "toning" could well be just dirt/grime/shaved metal picked up from other coins in the pocket or purse of the carrier. Consider (as a function of time involved) just how little even well-circulated coins are physically handled, compared to how long they sit wherever they are at the time. Even if someone spends a coin and the merchant then immediately gives that coin back out in change, how many times in a given day does that happen, compared to how long that coin sits (or jingles around with others) awaiting use?

That's why "pocket pieces" are such an effective way of returning a coin to "originality."

 

Interesting. That is the reason when I post a comment, 99% of the time, I have done the experimentation to back it up. I should like to hear how long it takes to restore a polished coin by "swishing" it around causing convection currents in a liquid suspension of a "softer" solution...Say what?

 

When did your point change from describing the use of baking soda in a process for the initial "cleaning" of a coin - as you used it on the last page in post #69 - to becoming a part of the restoration process from a cleaning (which is intuitively stupid)? Two entirely different things, and I'm not bothering with you again if you're up to your old habits of moving the goalposts.

 

No, bacon is bad for you so I mix in some scrapple
for those not familiar with scrapple
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrapple

 

Yeah.........only Pennsy folks know about scrapple.

 

mmm, Scrapple. The American Chorizo!

You don't want to know how either are made though

 

Don't matter a lick to a Pennsylvania native son......