Hobbies And Interests
What is toning?
Silver is a corrosive metal and often coins, which are produced to be brilliant, mellow with age. The process by which coins acquire color on their surfaces is called toning. A silver coin that is not brilliant is often called a toned coin.
Why would I want my coin to be toned?
A silver coin, when first produced by a mint, is brilliant and lustrous. Some silver coins acquire wonderful rainbow colors including aqua, emerald, topaz, sapphire and gold. Collectors covet these coins. Toning can also be used to cover past indignities to a coin&'s surfaces such as polishing, cleaning or other surface problems. For centuries, collectors have valued a naturally toned coin as both an object of beauty, and as proof that a coin is old.
What are some ways that I can accelerate toning?
You can accelerate the natural process of toning in several ways. The easiest is to find a paper envelope with a moderate sulfur content. This includes most older paper. Placing the coin in contact with the paper, with the high sulfur content, will cause the silver metal to react and beautiful colors can emerge. To accelerate the process, you can also put the envelope in sunlight. This is a gentle process that can be monitored daily to make sure that the toning does not go too far and become unpleasant--and irreversible--corrosion.
Several brands of antique coin albums also provide for similar effects, except since the coin&'s edge only touches the sulfur paper, stunning bulls-eye toning effects can result. This is often called peripheral toning as it starts at the edge. The bulls-eye refers to the untoned center.
There are other methods that can be used to induce toning, including baking a coin in a potato and other, more dramatic methods that involve an unstable combination of heat and chemicals, but the sunlight, time and sulfuric paper method has worked for generations of collectors.