Toning Experiment Fails

About a year ago I acquired three common date Morgan dollars at a coin show that had been dipped so they were white. All are about EF. Don't worry, I paid a dipped price. I put two of them into two empty wooden cigar boxes and the third into an empty matchbox so they could "naturally retone" to see how they would come out, hopefully with some good looking and maybe surprising coloration. About every three months I would flip them over to try to even out the toning effects.

I'm just reporting that all three are as white as the day I put them in. Not a hint of toning. They might as well have been in airtites.

I guess I'll continue the experiment for another year without changing anything or adding anything to "cheat" and see what happens, but this surprised me. I thought a year might be enough to get some results.

 

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Place them in an area that's slightly warm (like a windowsil or on your cable box).

 

Humidity (not enough) probably has something to do with it also

 

They are in an upstairs closet. The heat is gas - forced hot air from a very efficient new furnace. It's pretty humid in the summer except that we run the central air which brings it down some. The temperature probably never goes out of the range of about 60-80 degrees where it is stored. In the winter the humidity is pretty low, maybe 20%. Not many factories are left here in New Jersey and the air is probably cleaner than its reputation. I guess maybe they are overprotected. I thought that the residual chemicals in the cigar boxes and matchbox would be enough, but apparently it isn't.

I don't want to cheat by applying heat or any sort of chemical that isn't naturally part of the the storage method.

 

Now you're not expecting Fate to give up her secrets, are you?

 

If they were EF, and they were cleaned, you'll have a difficult time ever getting them to tone nicely or at all. Too much of the original surface structure (on the microscopic level) is gone.

 

You may have to give it a little more than a few years. My grandparents stored six rolls of Morgans in a canvas bank bag stuffed inside an old tobacco tin in a box in their attic (well over 150 degrees in summer) for over 60 years, and when I got them not a single one had any toning on them. How long do you have to experiment?
Guy~

 

Send 'em to me. I bet it would love the Florida humidity. :mouth:

 

There was a book about that called Coin Chemistry.
http://www.wizardcoinsupply.com/product/coin-chemistry.html/
I want to order it.

 

I would bet those are relative humidities. They are meaningless without knowing the outside temp and inside temp at least in January. As an example, 100% humidity (outside) at 32°F means the inside air when heated to 72° is about 25% relative humidity inside.
In July, the air conditioner is removing humidity so everything is meaningless.

 

Hmmmm. I didn't realize that circulated coins didn't retone as easily as MS coins tone. With this information I might have to find a warmer spot and continue the test. But I'm not going to do anything that I consider artificial.

Edit: It's pretty humid here in the summer.

 

um, would you consider an old album from say the 50's 60's and an oven at 250 for a bit to be artificial?

 

That would sort of violate the rules of the experiment. I was pretty sure I'd get interesting results from the cigar boxes and matchbox without applying artificial heat or anything else. I'm not in a rush.

 

RLM is 100% correct here.

Where I live in Florida, we are lucky if the humidity outside is less than 90%. However, in my air-conditioned house, it is almost always below 50%, and when I have the heat on in the winter it is even lower.

 

where do i go to find humidity for my city?

 

Taco Bell Napkin....

 

lol

 

I have had a few AU Mercs as an experiment in taco Bell napkins for a year in my garage. Nothing, Nada Zip Zero toning.