the canadian mint has launched the worlds first plasma effect coin. its priced at 250 canadian and i sblure in color. whatever is next
its a new technology by the canandian mint that enables the coin to have blue hues. http://www.mint.ca/royalcanadianmin....htm&sid=b156298f-f88c-4127-ab14-3b649b02cdb5
no, because that would probably yield a rainbow tone. they must have some technique to initiate and isolate the blue hue.
Actually I have baked coins and I can very easily isolate the colors I want... Here are a few example... It basically comes down to a lot of experimenting and boredom...
so many thoughts.. so little time... 'standard coin collecting supplies: coins, gloves, redbook.. easybake oven ..' those are cool ~ what do you do w/them?
I haven't looked into it yet but it may be similar to the hologram but at the microscopic level and would probably have a different molecular structure on the coin surface. I thought the canadian mint was losing focus with all the different coins they are producing but it looks like the US Mint is taking notice with the variety of coins they have been producing. In my opinion this can only hurt that market in the long run while boostiing the value the real coin collectors collection. Some day the new collectors will realize that the populations of the new coins are too great and gravitate to the old and rare coins thus boosting their value.
So what happens when it DOES tone? Does it turn silver? That would make it an amazing MONSTER UNTONED COIN!
I am not too sure if I agree Canada is the first country that has produced such coins. If I remember right, Austria has produced unusual colored coins with titanium which was treated in high temperature and had various colors to it.
The Austrian titanium (Ag/Ti) schilling coins were not actually colored; they do that with the niobium (Ag/Nb) euro pieces though. But it seems that what the Canadian Mint is something different: "7,000 of these coins are being issued with the reverse finished in stunning metallic blue hues, achieved through a unique, leading edge plasma effect. The RCM is the first Mint in the world to produce this jewel-like finish on a coin, by virtue of a proprietary coating which can produce different colours by varying its thickness. The blue effect was chosen to evoke the cold climate of both poles. Thanks to the efforts of the RCM's R&D team, the RCM continues to be a world leader in its field." http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/July2007/03/c2833.html If they were simply doing what other mints have done for a couple of years, they would probably phrase their press releases differently. I don't want any of those plasma effect coins, but it would surely be interesting to see an actual piece and compare it to other coins with color effects ... Christian
I'm putting together a website, one of the sections is on artificial toning, I have been experimenting with various known ways of toning to use them as illustrations for the site... I've practiced on jeffersons as they are cheaper... Other than that I don't do anything with them... They just get tossed back in my loose change jar. -Daniel