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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Vess1, post: 1304830, member: 13650&quot;]First of all, welcome to the forum!</p><p><br /></p><p>&nbsp; I&#039;ll try not to cover what Doug and others already have here.&nbsp;&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>&nbsp; The vast majority of rainbow toned coins are Morgan dollars.&nbsp;&nbsp; You almost need to know a little history to understand why this is.&nbsp; In short, they made so many under government mandate, that they produced more than was needed.&nbsp; They really only circulated well on the west coast.&nbsp; The rest of the country barely used them.&nbsp; </p><p>&nbsp; So millions of them sat in mint bags.&nbsp; Some for decades.&nbsp; The pittman act melted down roughly half the mintage of all the original Morgans.&nbsp; The silver was then in turn sent to Great Britain or made into Peace dollars.&nbsp;&nbsp; The original mintages for these are almost useless info now because nobody knows how much was lost.</p><p>&nbsp; Anyway, to get back on track, they sat stored in burlap bags with high sulfur contents.&nbsp; &nbsp; The ones around the outside touching the bags, or near the bag, tended to rainbow tone, depending on the conditions it was under.&nbsp;&nbsp; While the ones inside toward the center were mostly protected and remained white.&nbsp; Many had part of their face touching the bag while the other part was covered by another Morgan, leaving a crescent tone from the overlapping coin protecting it. </p><p><br /></p><p>&nbsp; For a good gauge on what was possible by this effect and what natural toning should look like,&nbsp; look up &quot;Battle Creek Morgans NGC star&quot; on ebay.&nbsp; I&#039;ve got one that has an entirely plum colored reverse.&nbsp; Pics in my album.&nbsp; These were bags stored in a basement by a private collector for 100 years that still had the original mint seals on them.&nbsp; The dealer that bought them opened them to find one of the most brilliantly toned hoard of Morgan dollars ever found.&nbsp;&nbsp; Most were sent to NGC for certification and many (but not all) from that hoard got the special label.</p><p><br /></p><p>&nbsp;&nbsp; Anyway, this is why most of the rainbow toned coins you see are Morgans.&nbsp; Peace dollars did not have the same experience so genuinely natural toned examples of them are rare.</p><p><br /></p><p>&nbsp; Other than that, you have album toning and many mint sets toned in their original packaging leaving us with some really nice looking Franklin halves, quarters and dimes.&nbsp;&nbsp; Some coins toned at the ends of rolls.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>&nbsp;It is smart to ask the question and acknowledge the problem though.&nbsp; There are some really bad, colored fake toned coins I&#039;ve seen on ebay.&nbsp;&nbsp; Natural toning is a progression of colors that you will see on many various auctions from many different sellers that looks similar.&nbsp;&nbsp; If one seller has a bunch of different denominations of silver coins, from old or modern years, all displaying the same colors and toning patterns,&nbsp; you&#039;ll probably want to run the other way.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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