Terminal Toning?

You asked a lot of questions so I'm breaking them out to try and answer them individually. And I'm going to explain a lot that you might already understand, but I can guarantee there are those who do not. So I'm explaining it for them as well.

There's a couple of things in this first one. First of all, is it true that some folks think that all toning is damage ? Yes. But, as a general rule a large majority of those in the hobby do not see it that way at all. Whichever side of the fence you stand on is a personal decision.

Terminal toning, that's another matter. Not everybody understands that there's even a difference between terminal toning and regular toning, but some do. So what's the difference ? It's pretty simple really. With regular toning there is still luster underneath the toning, and some of the time you can even see it shining right through the toning, other times you can't. Other times you might see some here and there and not any anywhere else - but that doesn't necessarily mean it's not still there. With terminal toning that doesn't happen, can't happen. The reason it can't happen is because the toning has gone deep enough into the surface of the coin to literally destroy the luster.

In other words, if you took a coin with regular toning and dipped it (properly), what you'd have is a coin that looked bright and lustrous, almost like it was freshly minted, because the original mint luster would still be there. But if you took a coin with terminal toning and dipped it what you'd have would be a coin that looked dull, and flat, and lifeless with no original mint luster. That would be because the toning had already destroyed all the luster.

If you don't understand this idea, this line of thinking, it sometimes helps if you think of like this. With toning it's a matter of degree, or put another way how thick the toning is, or put another way how deep (meaning down into the coin, into the metal itself) the toning is. For example. If you picture the luster on a coin looking like this -

/\/\/\/\/\/\/ Those Vs represent the flow lines on the metal, the luster itself. It is because of those Vs that the light is refracted and reflected back our eyes in the way it is. That is what we see when we look at a coin with original mint luster. But when that metal tones it starts right at the tip top peak of the Vs because that's where the metal is its thinnest - where it's most vulnerable to corrosion/toning. I can't draw a line across with a keyboard so you have to picture it in your head. And as the toning progresses that line drops down further in the V. So if it was midway down it might look kinda like this - /\- (picture that line going right through the V) If the toning had progressed that far it's going to be harder to see the underlying luster on the coin. And the thicker it gets, meaning the further down it goes, the harder the luster will be to see. And it will progress to the point that eventually it might look kinda like this - /\_ Once the toning has progressed that far, gotten that thick, you're not going to see underlying luster any more. And like I said before, that doesn't mean there isn't some still there, just means you can't see it anymore.

Now imagine this. With terminal toning the space between those Vs begins to fill up, until the Vs aren't even there anymore. That's because the metal would have been corroded that badly by that point. What those Vs represent are very thin strips of the coin metal. They're thin at the top and a bit thicker at the bottom. And as the metal corrodes, or tones if you will, a tiny bit of the thickness of the metal is destroyed and turned in the bi-product or result of toning. We're talking about this occurring at the molecular level here. But eventually it gets deeper and deeper until the metal is destroyed and those Vs no longer exist. That's when the toning becomes terminal.

On your coin, if you look at it you can still see some underlying luster in a few places, in other places, most of them in fact, you can't. Most of those areas are a grey color. That's regular toning. If the coin was dipped there's still going to be some original mint luster there. No, not quite as much as the day the coin was minted but some would still be there. As I said it's a matter of degree.

Then you have the other areas that quite dark, a lot darker than the rest of the coin. Like around the OLEON. It's darker because the toning is thicker there, it's more advanced there. Is it terminal ? Maybe, but maybe not. You never know for sure really, you might dip that coin and there might still be some luster there. Or there might not be any. And you'll never know unless the coin is dipped. That's why dipping is always a crap shoot.

Simple answer no. But that's only because the rate at which toning progresses, whatever that rate may be, is determined by the environmental conditions surrounding the coin - not by the toning itself. So whether the toning is just beginning or very advanced doesn't really matter. It will progress based on how much air, moisture, and temperature changes there are around the coin.

That depends on whether the coin is stored properly or not - nothing else. Over the course of your lifetime, if you store it properly, sure the toning will change some, progress some, but not radically so. But that's a big IF.

No. Again, the way the coin might change or not change is related to what I said above. And whether or not a coin with terminal toning should be avoided or not is a personal choice. For me, I'd avoid them because whatever damage there is, if there is any, is already done and there's nothing I can do about it. So I simply would not buy coins that have toning so dark that I think it might be terminal. But that's me.

No.

It's certainly possible, but there is really no way to know for sure. If it was dipped previously and it was done properly, then there wouldn't be any old toning left behind. I say that because yeah the toning is dark, but it's not THAT dark.

I see nothing unusual about it. Looks like common everyday toning to me.