Reply to Thread

Message:: [QUOTE="Carthago, post: 2272039, member: 76111"]Going back to TIF's original post, I think the cleaning on the Gordian was an improvement.  I'd prefer it not to have the accelerated toning, however, because the rainbow look doesn't appear natural to me.  In my experience, you can find ancients with natural rainbow toning, but it's not common.  I've seen some in the trays at the ANS in NY, but usually you find colored toning on nearly black coins in the protected areas around the devices where original mint luster still lurks.  It's far less common to find them on the devices in my experience. As for artificially toning ancients coins, I've heard the best way is to use liver of sulfur.  I actually bought some to experiment on some coins as I have a few lower value coins that are blast white and will never tone.  I'm afraid to do it though and probably never will. How a coin was originally cleaned I'm convinced affects it's ability to tone.  I've got coins that were heavily cleaned and I know have been in collections for 30-40 years and are still virtually Morgan dollar white.  Some coins have gone very dark in my collection after only 5 years.  I basically won't buy blast white, over cleaned  coins anymore.  In fact, I will pay a premium for a naturally well toned coin.  Sometimes a significant premium because it is a statement of the quality of the coin's surfaces.[/QUOTE]