There is something remarkable about an object from another time that has not just survived the ages, preserving some sense and evidence of what was, but has also grown more lustrous, unique and beautiful within the hands of time. Coins and medals have their own way of aging distinct from the mere abuse of wear and tear. The interaction of silver, copper, bronze and gold with the elements that have surrounded them in their minting, handling and preservation imbues them with a rainbow of hues unintended by designer or mint.
       At Black Mountain Coins we get to see many coins and medals of every quality imaginable cross our threshold, but it is always with wondrous surprise that we greet the colors emergent from that century-old envelope, from the twist of 1930s newsprint that hugged that peace dollar or the long-forgotten folder that once housed a lost relative's assemblage of keepsakes and tokens. Naturally toned coins are a marvel to any collector. They highlight the beauty of the precarious balance between age and decay; between the remarkable and the obscure.

Artificially toned coins are a plague upon a unique collector market.

 

A beautifullly toned 1884o MS62 Star Morgan Dollar. The toning on this coin possesses markers that identify it as a prized natural Rainbow Lady. This Lady's colors have been verified by NGC.

Beauty in the eye of the Appraiser. 

       I can attest that otherwise unremarkable coins, when showing nice toning, will vanish quickly from our website. This is my personal observation about a growing area of collector interest. The more beautiful the toning, the briefer it's history on the market and the more highly prized by collectors. But what i can attest to from my experience in the collector market so too can numerous other sellers attest to. Collectors will find many offerings on-line, in shops and at shows that are touted for their "rainbow hues," brilliant color" or "vibrant magentas, blues and greens."  What you are less likely to hear is that those prized "vibrant" colors are more often the result of artificial toning treatments than they are of natural and accidental interactions between the coin and it's environmental history. Buy an artificially toned coin and you've bought a numismatic fraud.

Why do numismatists care?
       For most of collecting history numismatists have preferred coins as untouched by the environment and human hands as possible. We always prize unblemished luster and an appearance as close to mint state as possible. We abhor the cleaned coin as a tampered clunker or a whizzed fizzler, and a coin that's been altered intentionally for any kind of eye-appeal is automatically devalued in our estimation. As toned coins have gained a serious numismatic following we've applied this same philosophy that disparages intentional alteration. A collector may prize a piece for its appearance but we prize it for it's true history and condition, and the value attached to a coin and one which is supported across the market isn't one that can be manufactured.

Adding color to a coin is artful only in the worst sense of the term

Toning is the beauty of graceful decline.
       Toning on coins and medals, as is the case with all metals in general, is the result of chemical interactions between the metallic object and all those things in all the environments with which the object has interacted. Oxidation causes copper to brown and green, silver to blacken and nickel to gray, but interaction with other compounds can add new colors of reaction. The longer or more intense the exposure of a given metal and it's impurities with specific environments the greater the evidential markers of that interaction. The Statue of Liberty may have been cast, formed and made of bright red sheets but it's the green patina of the Lady we all know and admire. We also know that the green is a sign of her decay, of the gradual corrosion of the copper. It's an inescapable element of her endurance as a symbol, even as it's a sign of her aging.

Fashion won't cut it.     
       Strangely enough, our association of patinas with graceful endurance has also made a market for forced and hyper aging. Contrary to the exercise of fashion we relate to our own appearance, we avidly buy metals that have been forced to undergo artificial aging. We apply various chemicals to attain the specific patinas or toning that we associate as desirable for an antiqued or finished look. That's all a matter of fashion though. Articial toning, when applied to coins, is an early death knell - evidence of a handler forcing a numismatic lady to put one foot in the grave. Fashion won't cut it. Send an artificially toned coin into a reputable grading service and you'll get it back with a toe tag.

Better the tater than the buttered coin

A Clearly Dipped 1881 Morgan. This coin was likely worth $75 until someone tried to make it worth more. Note that all the tone lines follow the same diagnal. They were going for the purples and magentas.

       I once heard the story of a collector who, disappointed with the grade a prized Morgan Dollar had received from a professional grading service, decided to rewrite that Lady Liberty's fate. He broke her out of her slab, popped her into a potato, and set her to bake all night. The next day he had a toned beauty. I'll bet he even threw in some butter to complicate those chemical reactions and make it all the more palatable. While second thoughts caused him to refrain from hawking her as naturally toned he didn't hesitate to sell her for a premium based on the rich violets, magentas, greens and blues his tatered Dame had attained. Buyer beware! If her fate was to end up as a pretty key fob then that's no biggie. But if her fate was intended to be a prize for a numismatic collection, well - anyone buying that coin at better than melt would have done better investing in the potato that buttered her up.

Is there a doctor in the house?

A Tie-Dyed Morgan Artificially Toned, but done in such a way as to mimic the authentic crescent pattern marker of a natural tone. The edge may have toned naturally but the rest is all invention.  They were likely trying to get the prized sea-green toning to occur.

       Sometimes a seller or collector might choose to artificially age the appearance of a coin, not to increase it's eye-appeal by way of enhanced color, but to diminish the evidence of other wear or damage the coin has been subject to. Where cleaning will only reveal more of what one wishes weren't evident, a heavy or even slight patina may suffice to obscure an otherwise damning imperfection. Different approaches to artificially toning a coin can also manufacture a false tale of that coin's history. Chemicals applied by way of saturated bits of canvas may also confound a collector into believing that a coin has spent much of its life sequestered in a mint bag - forgotten in some vault and only recently recovered from the most hallowed of hallowed repositories. The imperfections evident on the reverse are explained away as bag marks on a Mint State coin. How could it be otherwise? The "evidence" of it having lived cheek to cheek with the canvas of the mint's own sack might just sell that story and that fake - maybe.

A round of applause for beautiful dirty money!

Naturally Toned 1902 Bremen 2 Mark piece. This piece shows the results of long-term natural toning evidenced in a series of markers.

       So - after all of my cautions about dupes, dips, taters and fakes - I have to tell you: I applaud the pink ladies, purple Morgans and Seagreen Liberties. I also have a great appreciation for onset toning - toning that isn't readily apparent but evidences itself enough to show the direction a coin is heading in on the color wheel. Often the toning on a coin doesn't seem especially remarkable. Dull yellows and browns don't inspire much exclamation, but once a specific toning has set in it can go to some pretty remarkable places. We don't sell artificially toned coins on our website or in our shop and the brightest naturally toned coins vanish from our stock quickly, rightfully sought after as they are. The ones we show you today likely will not be there tomorrow. What predominates then are coins of either uneven toning or coins with onset toning.
       Take note as you look through images of the coins on our site for onset toning around the edges, especially on proof coins. Once started these patterns and colors will only intensify. The coins with a general but muted patina are further along in the toning process but show less differentiation of color on the surface, but these too will intensify over the years if left to their own aging and not tinkered with or cleaned. If you are building a collection of unique coins or medals then acquiring ones that evidence their history in ways that don't devalue your investment makes the best sense. If you want to insure that your coin or medal continues down the same path of colorful aging then identifying candidates in part based on whether they come in mint boxes or mint packaging offers good insurance. It's often enough their handling and packaging at the mint that set them on a specific path of toning.