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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;TIF, post: 2271953, member: 56859&quot;]It&#039;s certainly an interesting subject.&nbsp; Original patinas on ancient silver coins would be black... very dark black.&nbsp; Virtually all ancient silver coins have been cleaned... mechanical cleaning, chemical cleaning, etc.&nbsp; Those blast-white ancient silver coins?&nbsp; Cleaned relatively recently.&nbsp; &quot;Natural&quot; retoning will occur over time unless sealed away and protected against sulfur elements in the environment.&nbsp; Is accelerating the toning wrong?&nbsp; &nbsp; How far is too far?&nbsp; Leaving the coin on a sunny windowsill?&nbsp; Placing it in an old &quot;toner&quot; album?&nbsp; Placing it in container with a boiled egg?&nbsp; Dipping it in sulfur?&nbsp; Anything at all that is <i>intentional</i>?&nbsp; Everyone will have a different opinion.&nbsp; Since the initial post I did re-strip the tarnish and am allowing the tone to take on a more subtle toning.&nbsp; That doesn&#039;t take long in my location if I simply leave the coin open to room air.</p><p><br /></p><p>All of these silver patinas should probably be viewed as transient unless great care is taken with storage.&nbsp; I have many gorgeously toned coins (received that way) for which I&#039;d like to preserve their current state of toning/tarnish.&nbsp; Some of these have patinas which appear to be stable over a relatively long time, looking at prior sales images.&nbsp; Those are very carefully stored.&nbsp; Others that have been stripped more recently (by others), I am less careful with and check often to see what they look like.&nbsp; If/when they appear to be toning, once they have toned &quot;enough&quot; I place them into a more protected storage setup.</p><p><br /></p><p>Bronze coins are another matter entirely.&nbsp; My experience with &quot;sand&quot; patinas has led me to suspect most of them.&nbsp; I&#039;ve had a great number of coins in which the &quot;sand&quot; patina is just some yellowish/orangish wax-like or makeup-like substance rubbed into the crevices.&nbsp; That does indeed make the devices stand out but it can also cover up pits and problems, plus the substance itself might be damaging to the metal.&nbsp; Generally, when I receive a bronze coin I carefully examine it.&nbsp; If the &quot;sand&quot; patina is soft and can be scraped with a fingernail, I soak it in rubbing alcohol which removes the makeup-like junk.&nbsp; If that doesn&#039;t remove it, I try acetone.&nbsp; If that doesn&#039;t remove it, I try mineral spirits.&nbsp; If it remains, it might be real and I stop.</p><p><br /></p><p>I&#039;ve removed the makeup-like gunk from a number of coins and doing so usually revealed less appealing surfaces and in some cases, probable bronze disease.&nbsp; Whether the bronze disease was caused by the fake patina or hiding the disease, I don&#039;t know.&nbsp; There are a few eBay/Vcoins sellers who appear to routinely put such substances on their bronze coins, and I generally stay away from those unless they will remove the substance and take pictures for me, and then only buy it if the coin still looks okay.&nbsp; Here&#039;s an interesting article about applied patinas and tooling of bronze coins:&nbsp; <a href="http://www.fontanillecoins.com/tooling.htm" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.fontanillecoins.com/tooling.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.fontanillecoins.com/tooling.htm</a>[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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