artificial toning – American Coin Stash

Here we go! Another edition of ‘me beating up some silver rounds’. If you haven’t read them yet, I’d recommend reading:
Part 1.) How to Artificially Tone Silver Coins
Part 2.) Toning a Silver Round with Liver of Sulfur Gel

To preface, in general it is a bad idea to remove toning or clean your coins in any way. I have another post “Cleaning Coins is Actually Bad For Them” which goes into more detail, but the short of it is that any touching, rubbing, or chemical process done to a coin can hurt the value.

Touching a coin can cause tiny scratches on the surface. Even something as gentle as baking soda or cotton can cause small marks and discolorations.

I am using a silver round for this experiment because I do not want to damage the numismatic value of any of my coins. This is the same silver buffalo round I used in “Toning a Silver Round with Liver of Sulfur Gel“, so I have already put this round through the wringer and am not too concerned with damaging it any further.

Here are the ingredients I used:

Baking Soda
Aluminum Foil
Boiling Water
A Pyrex Glass Bowl (You could also use plastic.)
Salt (Any will do, some recommend Sea Salt. I used Morton’s Kosher Salt)

Before Images:

This silver round had been toned by me with Liver of Sulfur Gel. I decided this was the best round to show the removal process on, since the toning was so even.

Before starting, you should dip the round or coin in acetone to remove any glue, wax, or oils. This will help the toning leave more evenly.

Step 1:

Silver Round on Aluminum Foil with Baking Soda.

Cover bottom of a glass or plastic bowl with aluminum foil. I used a single layer of aluminum foil. Put your coin on the aluminum foil, and sprinkle baking soda on top.

I used about 3 large tablespoons of baking soda. The salt will be added after the boiling water.

Step 2:

Silver Round in Hot Water and Baking Soda.

Add the boiling water. It will fizz and bubble a lot, so be ready for that. I would use a larger bowl.

Sprinkle some salt into the bowl. I don’t know what this does scientifically, but the water fizzled again when the salt hit it, so it did something.

I’m not sure if this was just my imagination, but I could smell sulfur wafting up from the bowl. Maybe the baking soda and aluminum foil was releasing sulfur left in the coin? (Any chemists reading this, please explain in the comments!)

After a minute, I gently flipped the coin. I’m not sure if this made any difference as the toning was already disappearing on both sides. (Be careful flipping it over, the aluminum foil can scratch the coin’s surface.)

I used a spoon to gently stir the water so more of the baking soda could dissolve. I was very careful not to touch the round as to prevent damage.

Step 3:

After 2 minutes, the mixture seemed to have done all it could. So I removed the coin to dry. The recommended process for drying is to either let the coin air dry or use a hair dryer on low heat.

Since at this point I had already damaged the surface of this coin in my other experiments, I put the coin on a paper towel and patted it dry.

Here are the after images:

Welp… it removed a lot of the toning, but the coin doesn’t look like new. In fact, I think it looks even worse than when we started.

Let’s see what happens if we try it again!

Take 2: What I did differently

This time, I crumpled the aluminum foil before putting it into the bowl. My hope was that a greater surface area of aluminum foil would increase the chemical reaction.

Besides crumpling the aluminum foil more, everything else was the same. I placed the coin in the bowl and poured hot water over it. I added some salt and stirred gently, flipping it after a minute or two.

Crumpling the aluminum foil left air pockets inside, so I pushed the aluminum foil down with a spoon to keep it submerged.

And here it is after the second go:

After 2 rounds in aluminum foil and baking soda.

Not a huge difference, so there are probably diminishing returns to this method. Even if I performed this trick 100 times I doubt I could get the coin looking like a new silver round.

Conclusion

Before, After Take One, and After Take Two.

Honestly, I liked the coin better with the even toning, so I will probably use my leftover Liver of Sulfur Gel to re-tone this coin.

That being said, it did work. If you are looking to remove toning from a coin, this is an effective method. Just don’t expect your coin to look fresh from the mint!

I am an Amazon Affiliate, so I earn from items purchased through links clicked on my site. This does not increase the price of items purchased through my links. My purpose, as always, is to inform.

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.

Silver Round with Liver of Sulfur Extended Life Gel.

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

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!

The sulfur and warm water… looks a lot like urine.

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.

Obverse (left) and reverse (right) after 30 seconds in Liver of Sulfur Gel.

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.

Silver in Baking Soda after first round of toning.

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

After the first round of liver and sulfur.

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:

8 Droplets of Liver of Sulfur in a plastic container.

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.

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.

Using baking soda to polish the silver after using Liver of Sulfur Gel.

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.

After polishing the silver with baking soda!

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:

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!

Tag: artificial toning

How to Remove Natural and Artificial Toning From Coins

Toning a Silver Round with Liver of Sulphur Gel