I have always heard, since I first started collecting some 20 years ago now, that putting decent silver coins in a Whitman album was a bad idea. Sure enough, I recently retrieved my old circulated Roosevelt set, and most were depressingly spotty. But THEN, a few years back, I purchased a type set from another collector and several them looked like the coins below- with this (I thought) attractive alternating streak toning; it gave sort of a woodgrain look to the cents (see the indian, and to a lesser degree the 09 vdb below), and on several of the silver coins it manifested itself as this really nice blue on the reverse (shown on a twenty-cent piece below); all the coins were circulated condition, F to VF+ range as opposed to AU-BU like my Roosevelt dime set- perhaps that has something to do with it? Also, this was one of the older Whitman cardboard folders, with the front that just has the name of the coin and not an "image" of it. Have others had similar experiences with silver and copper coins in Whitman albums, and am I alone in finding these attractive? I decided to put these up for online auction with a larger group of coins, but there doesn't seem to be much interest and I'm wondering if "nice toning" to other collectors really only means the wild multicolored or concentric circles you see from windowed-album toned coins. I guess at least they look good to me which may turn out to be a good thing! Thanks! --- "Silver and gold are not the only coin; virtue too passes current all over the world." Euripides http://myworld.ebay.com/cannoncoins
Put some AU or MS silver in those and see what happens. I believe this is a major source of toned coins on the market today. I have bought many sets in such old holders. I still have a Mexican type set I bought last year still in the holder, (windowed holder in this case). All of the higher grade silver is very pretty. A lot of the one sided toning is from what you describe, while two sided is from the windowed folders. Just my opinion, from someone who has bought quite a few older folders and taken the coins out. Chris
