Beware of rainbow toning

With a good Chemical and Science background , theoretically anyone could do it with a few $$$ of equipment and chemicals. But only a very very small fraction would be MA from a uncontrolled dip and color, maybe 1 out of 100 or 500, Slab the one and either sell the rest as AT on ebay , or dip and try again. It is a very low income for the time and work. Make toning chambers out of plastics to mimic how an album would hold them , use computerized times and quantitative chemical release via valves and sensor, and more $$$$, you probably, after experimentation and standardization, improve to 1/50 or better. Same problem, is it profitable? Even with out a computer, you need the background, chemicals, and time. With 50,000 -100,000 startup, chemical knowledge, I estimate an individual could make 5- 20 MA rainbow toners a week ( estimate, as I haven't done it, and I know no one who will admit they have). If you have this in a lab of your, and spare time, it could be done. The higher the value of the basic coin, the more suspicious people will be, so you can not just high end it. A lot of 1880-S and such. I make $60 hr part time teaching, and enjoy it, and wouldn't start this as I would clear less and be miserable ( Would Lehigh say it was AT or not? ). AT is like engraving buffalo 5 cents, it would best be done in Prison, rather than spending multitude hours for little income. Also many would be tempted to brag, or advertise their skills, and be out forever. It may be easy theoretically, but is it profitable enough for the risk?

 

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That sounds difficult to me, not easy.

 

Sounds like a good side project for a high school science teacher. I'm having visions of Walter White out in the desert cooking up a batch of toned Morgans in his mobile AT lab.

 

Sounds brutally difficult to me. But I'm sure Doug will tell us about all the labs he has seen equipped as above. Of course we will just have to take his word for it.

 

Is not drawing a conclusion from a single auction not the same?

 

So your saying that the market is saturated with AT coins yet he happens to find the one auction in the US that is immune to such saturation. He is one lucky guy!

 

You have found the right base formula. But the assumption that because thiourea can also be used in recovering metal from ore it will move in this case, is false. What thiourea does is break chemical bonds with actually a wide variety of possible silver partners. Whether it moves depends on whatever else is going on. Typically moving the silver requires extraordinarily low pH, some applied voltage, and Fe ions to facilitate the reaction. Various acids have a wide range of silver reactivity, from highly so for nitric, to less for hydrochloric and sulfuric, to essentially none for citric. This is virtually the same error in methodology committed by the EPA when it initially made silver a monitored pollutant in municipal waste water streams. They overstated environmental silver's bioavailability by a factor of 10^8. I was instrumental in the first state to "push back" against the EPA and we won, causing all 50 states to roll back silver waste water regulations.

I have changed the formula by using distilled water, to eliminate natural Fe-containing hard water, kept the pH above 3.5, and use only glass containers to avoid introducing any stray charges. Yes, the reaction is slow. I have "dipped" a cameo proof and several MS coins in this for 5 hours and gotten them slabbed and graded by the "big 2". Oh, I also dilute all from the S-10 basic formula.

I have had one notable failure. I got, dirt cheap, a 1953 Franklin proof with a half-inch wide deep purple swath right across it from 10 o'clock to 4 o'clock. I had never seen anything like it. It looked like a piece of VHS tape had been dipped in purple ink and laid across the coin. It spent 30 minutes in this stuff, and while the color is gone, a barely perceptible haze of mirror surface break was left behind. I still consider it a vast improvement.

 

Maybe SilverTowne is saving all the others for when you're around, kind of like "in the back room", huh?

I watch a lot of their auctions online. Pretty diverse mix of stuff. Toned pieces are not that common in their online auctions. I think to the extent they have them, they are in "regular inventory". I don't know. Again, I don't seek them out much. I get the impression ST uses their auction the way used car dealers use auto auctions, to move volume that doesn't pay to handle another way. I watch to pick up sleepers that they overlooked. I do a lot of watching, not much buying.

 

Toned coins are not that common, PERIOD. I watch every Heritage auction and have for over a decade. I look at all the Morgan Dollars and all the Jefferson Nickels. There has not been a noticeable increase in the percentage of toned coins since I have been tracking auctions. Granted, I don't count the number of toned coins in each auction, but if the saturation of AT coins that is being claimed in this thread had actually occurred, I'm sure I (and others) would have noticed. Btw, I am not shy about calling out coins that I think might be AT. I have done it in the past on this forum.

The Market Acceptability of Rainbow Toned 1945-P PCGS MS67 Jefferson Nickels

 

Or you could just put a bunch of coins in a Crown Royal bag and hang them in the sewer vent on top of your house. Problem solved. Cheap.

 

Okay, I have a theory on why I might perceive them as more plentiful than you do - selection bias. Due to my health issues, literally the MAJORITY of shows I go to are major national shows, like ANAs and Whitmans. I'd EXPECT them to be for that audience. Think there might be anything to this theory? As for your link, I went right to the pics and initially skipped the text. Everything I saw there said "fluids" to me, right from the get-go.

 

Ok, show us some results, I would be interested in the % of MA ones.

 

In his underwear!

 

Why is pointing to a single coin in a slab vs all the other coins out there any different than rendering the results of a single auction?

And for the record, not a single person, including me, has said or stated that the market is "saturated" yet you continually use this to preface your comments.

Folks are simply being cautioned to not jump into toned coins without doing their homework first because there are people out there doing "experiments" and some of those "experiments" have made it into slabs.

Toning, it appears, has become "the next best thing", and historically speaking, where there's a market, there is always someone willing to satisfy that market. Either by natural means, accelerated means, or artificial means.

 

i think you might be responding to posts again without reading the posts. what we said is that if it were as possible as it is being claimed to at white coins into ma standards then the market would be saturated because the coin docs would be cranking them out. there are a few here who think that people would hold back and drop only a few into the market at a time. but those of us who live in the real world know that it would cause a mad panic to crank out as many toned coins as they could to cash out as quickly as possible to beat the other guy to the punch.

 

Actually, you were the one who inferred it! If you meant something else, we are all ears.

 

Nope. I checked and even quoted each of my replies in this thread. Nowhere and you can read for yourself, nowhere did I state, imply, or even "infer" that the market was "saturated" withy toned coins.

You are obviously "reading between the lines" and drawing your own conclusions as to what I did or did not say.

 

I already proved that you did infact "infer" it. If you don't have the integrity to admit when you are wrong, why should we believe anything that you say?

When Vic says "Were it as easy as you think the market would be saturated by now" and you respond by saying "who says it is not" and post an AT coin link, you are obviously implying that the market is saturated with AT coins.

Keep dodging, maybe it will fool somebody!

 

DESERTGEM & MR BELLMAN - Quick, I need your help. I have a sock, some white out, a spring, a match and a cross pen, how do I get off the side of this mountain? I called MacGyver and he said he needs to consult with you both first.

 

You have proven nothing other than you read way too much onto what others say. You have proven that you are adamant about defending a non-existent front based solely upon your own paranoia.