AT vs NT - what do you think?

I'd almost bet that the toning on your avatar occurred in much less time than that.

I realize that a great many people think that natural toning takes a long, long time to occur. But it doesn't. Oh sure there are times that it does take a long time, sometimes even a very long time. But there are also times when it occurs very quickly. And from everything I've seen, studied, read about, and heard over the years - quick occurs far more often than long.

Of course quick and long are relative terms and some will see them as meaning many different things. But for my purposes quick can be anywhere from a few months to a couple of years. Long can be anywhere from 5 years to decades. But in no case is either one a requirement for toning, or the lack of it, is entirely dependent upon conditions. And in most cases ones personal experience has little if any bearing on it because conditions can vary so greatly.

In other words, one can say well my coins never did this or my coins never did that, or my coins did do this or my coins did do that. And they think that this has meaning, that it indicates what other coins did or didn't do. But they don't realize that whatever happened to their coins only happened because their own very specific, and often quite different, conditions. There are literally a thousand or more variables involved in how coins tone or don't tone. And quite often, in fact almost always, those variables came into play long before you ever owned the coin.

I have personally seen colorful toning begin on new coins in as little as a few weeks. And that was on coins sealed in Air-Tites and then sealed in Tupperware containers - and in the second driest state in the country. And yet only 12 feet away where I had other virtually untoned older MS coins stored also sealed in Air-Tites and in another sealed container - nothing happened.

So what was different ? What could possibly explain such drastically different results ? Simple, the coins that toned were in a wooden chest of drawers. The coins that did not tone were in the safe, with nothing but inert materials.

And I did not do this as an experiment, it all happened quite by accident. The coins that I stuck in my dresser had no value to speak of, they were simply new coins that anybody could get, Silver Eagles as a matter of fact. So no, they weren't modern clad coins, they were silver, just like the older more valuable coins in the safe. The one and only difference was their exposure from being stored in that wood dresser.

My point is that's all it takes, once little thing being different. You can have your coins in album out on a bookshelf in the living room, or in an album stored away in your safe - and the results may be different. Or they may not, for there are other variables as well, countless numbers of them. And somebody else in another town may have completely different results than you did, even though they did the same things you did.

So no, colorful natural toning doesn't always take 10 years, or decades, or any other period of time. So don't ever fool yourself into believing that there is some set time. It can occur quickly, or slowly, or it may not occur at all. Certainly some toning will occur no matter what you do. The only question is the matter of degree and the way it will end up looking - hardly noticeable, attractive, ugly, or just plain blah.