An interesting toning pattern that just turned up on eBay

Just came across this:

1946-D Walking Liberty Half Dollar - Original - Book Toned Letters, Read Descrip

This coin was apparently facing the printed last page of a Whitman folder, and the areas of the coin in contact with the paper toned, except for the parts of the paper that actually had ink on them! So you see a circulated Walker with fairly ugly toning on the obverse, and lighter reversed letters where the toning was blocked.

I'm almost tempted -- but not quite.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

Cool.

 

Make an offer, ask him if the folder comes with it.

 

Kind'a interesting what old storage methods can do to perfectly normal coins. So ink halts tarnish?....or at least somewhat. Very odd!

 

Have not seen one (Morgan dollar) like this in decades. Most of these were probably dipped.

 

Are you kidding me - maybe I'm skeptical but reading other posts you don't get a toned coin from that much wear. Could be wrong but shysters are out there AT,ing worn coins and profiting from that. PASS!!!!

 

Huh?

 

Well Books - how does tone stay on a worn coin?

 

Interesting. The letters look white, and not as in silvery white... I mean actually white.

 

Easy. Dip the coin, then put it in the album, wait a while, et voilà toned, circulated coin.

 

What do you mean "how does [it] stay on a worn coin"? You've never seen a worn coin tone?

 

Well duh - I said it as I ain't seen it happen naturally - Splain Lucy!!

 

That does not answer my question!!

 

A worn coin can most definitely tone. I would assume that most of such toning would occur in an album. Here's my toned 1820 25C in G06.

 

Nor does this answer mine, Markus. What EXACTLY do you mean by "how does tone stay on a worn coin"? Perhaps it's just me, but as a blanket statement that doesn't make any sense, unless qualified; as you know all worn coins are not bright and shiny simply due to being dirty, or are you talking about the apparent color visible on the clearly angled photo? Just clarify.....

 

First, this coin is, in my opinion, very much AT. It doesn't look right for an album coin (the type of thumb-buster he shows isn't known for toning, and even if it did, it would be two sided). Album toning comes from proximity to the cardboard holder, and should thus be fairly uniform around the rim of the coin. I've seen letter toning like he mentions, but this coin definitely doesn't look like it to me.

I am really not understanding what you are trying to say here? Are you saying that you don't think circulated coins can tone? Or are you saying that you think the coin tones, then it circulates, and you don't understand how it would still be toned? A circulated toned coin usually has been stored by a collector for a number of years, and acquires the toning after the circulation wear. An example of this would be this Bust half:

 

Hello,

I am currently at work; a government job and I can not access E-bay...can anyone post the 46-D Walking Liberty Half Dollar here on this site for me? If not np, no worries. Thanks.

MJH

 

Here's the obverse, reverse isn't interesting. (The joy of TeamViewer, which lets me connect to my home machine while I'm at work...!)

 

I took the plunge and just bought it for $16. Neat piece. I'm going to sink another $20 in it and see if it'll grade. Heck, maybe I'll get a trueview, lol.

 

The part that doesn't seem "natural" is at the 10-12 o'clock portion of the rim. The lack of toning is most striking on the rim, which I assume would be direct contact argument, carbon of the print preventing the acid of the paper from toning the metal, but where the field adjoins the rim and the paper could not retain direct contact, the 'toning' contrast becomes as expected less ..But it maintains a linear representation of the letter (reverse lower 'e'), as if the print might be blocking a "ray" of toning chemical rather than a vague diffuse area which would be expected if a random chemical movement was occurring. Superman's X-ray vision, where he could read paper print within a metal safe comes to mind. Both it and this effect are not possible in a real world.