Toning a Silver Round with Liver of Sulphur Gel

After sharing my article, How to Artificially Tone Silver Coins?, I received lots of great feedback!

First, I didn’t actually need to put my silver coin IN the egg to tone it… whoops.

Second, I could buy Liver of Sulphur Gel online to get a much more even toning! I purchased it immediately, and now I’m going to share how well it worked.

I am an Amazon Affiliate, so I do make a commission off of any products purchased from my Amazon Links. This commission does not increase the price of products purchased through my links. Thank you for the support!

I am using the same silver Buffalo Round I used for “How to Artificially Tone Silver Coins?” which I am using because it had the least amount of toning.

You can view the original SilverTowne Buffalo Round on SDBullion by clicking this link.

I purchased the Liver of Sulfur Gel on Amazon. It has more than enough gel for the experiment. Plus, it came with instructions on how to tone coins, jewelry and silverware!

Step 1.) Wash the Coin

I wore gloves and cleaned it with Dawn Dish Soap. Make sure to wear gloves while handling the coin from here on out, as oils on your hand could effect the evenness of the artificial toning.

2.) Prep Your Neutralizing Solution

Once your coin reaches the desired level of toning, you will want to submerge it in water and baking soda IMMEDIATELY. This neutralizes the sulfur so your coin stops processing.

Step 3.) Combine 4-8 Drops of Liver of Sulfur with Warm Water

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First, remember to take the plastic seal off of your Liver of Sulfur. Wear gloves when taking the seal off. I had to use a toothpick to remove the seal as it did not all come off in one go.

I used 8 drops of Liver of Sulfur with 1.5 cups of warm tap water.

Surprisingly, the sulfur was smelly, but not as smell as I was expecting. I did this on a stove with the fan on medium, but did not feel the need to open the doors and windows to avoid the smell. In fact, it reminded me of making Easter eggs as a kid!

I used warm, but not hot tap water for my first try. So the silver did not change colors as fact as the instructions led me to believe.

Step 4: Submerge the Coin

The instructions said to use wire or tongs to submerge the coin, but I was lazy so I just used my gloved hand, remembering to rotate the coin every few second so the sulfur could work evenly.

Here is the front and back after about 45 seconds in the mixture. I would lift the coin out every 10 seconds to check the color.

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Step 5: Neutralize the Sulfur

Once it reached a fairly toned level I took the coin out and submerged it in the neutralizing baking soda solution.

Here is what both sides of the silver bullion looked like after being neutralized and drying on a paper towel.

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This turned out so much better than my other attempts at toning! The color was fairly even, and had many of the blue tones I was looking for.

Even though this looked better than before, I decided to do another round, to see just how far I could tone it. This time I decided to use hot water, hoping it would make the toning happen faster.

Round 2:

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This time instead of using warm tap water, I put 1 cup of tap water into a mug and microwaved it for 45 seconds. Then I poured the water into the plastic container so I could dip my coin.

What I did NOT think about was that I would now have to submerge my hand in hot water. Thankfully, I did not heat the water any longer because it was pretty uncomfortable to keep even my fingers in. DO NOT USE BOILING WATER.

The hot water worked a LOT faster. I barely had time to take photos before I was ready to take the silver out.

Again, move the coin into a neutralizing bath of baking soda and water.

Wow, this worked great. The color was much more blue and very even on both sides.

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These were very close to what I wanted, but the instructions on the Liver of Sulfur Gel had a section for polishing the silver with dry baking soda using your fingers.

I decided to try it.

This was super easy, I simply put some baking soda on the coin and rubbed it gently with my fingers. Then, I turned the coin to do the same with the other side.

HOLY MOLY! This really improved the look of the silver rounds.

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This was almost exactly the look I was hoping for. Polishing really made the finer details of the silver round stand out.

Here is a comparison of the silver round before and after. Slide the middle bar to compare:

Conclusion

I’m not sure if I like this look more than a perfect silver coin, but if you have a coin that is already developing some unattractive toning then I think this is a great thing to try.

Plus, it’s a lot of fun. If you have kids that are interested in silver this is a really easy activity for the two of you to do together.

What you need to try this at home:

• Liver of Sulfur Gel
• Gloves
• Plastic Containers
• Baking Soda
• Paper Towels

If you want to try other fun experiments, check out the previous article “How to Artificially Tone Silver Coins?” where I try to achieve the same effect with household items!