Beautifully toned silver

[rasiel]

Paid a cool grand for this tiny siliqua but am smitten with the peacock show. And to think all of it is due to gunk thinner than 1% of the width of a human hair :- )

What about you? Got any colorfully toned ancient silver?

[AETHER]

That is a very nice one. Closest I have is this Domitian

 

Edited April 6 by AETHER

[Roman Collector]

That is lovely toning! I have a couple of denarii in my Antonine collection with colorful toning.

[sand]

My Alexander The Great posthumous tetradrachm has some rainbow toning, on the obverse.

Alexander III The Great. Posthumous Issue. AR Tetradrachm. Minted 280 BC to 200 BC. Odessos Mint. Price 1163. Maximum Diameter 28.0 mm. Weight 16.74 grams. Obverse : Heracles In Lion Skin. Reverse : Zeus On Throne.
Minted in Odessos, which is now called "Varna" in Bulgaria, on the western coast of the Black Sea.

[CPK]

Nice coin @rasiel. I love well-toned silver.

I don't think I have any real iridescent-toned coins...but here is a bronze issue of Constantine I with toned silvering which is one of my favorite coins:

CONSTANTINE I, AD 306-337
AE3 (20.86mm, 2.66g, 6h)
Struck AD 329-330. Rome mint
Obverse: CONSTANTI-NVS MAX AVG, rosette-diademed, draped, and cuirassed bust of Constantine I right
Reverse: D N CONSTANTINI MAX AVG around edge, VOT • XXX in two lines within laurel wreath; RFP below
References: RIC VII 322, RCV 16226
Well-centered and struck. Area of flatness on reverse. A magnificent portrait with toned silvering.

[Amarmur]

Color and toning on ancients is nice. Here are a few. My favorite is my Julia Domna Hilaritas with rainbow toning. The Faustina with Juno has golden toning which is cool. My Vespasian denarius has dark cabinet toning. The Gordian III Antoniannius is pretty colorful. 

[Ryro]

I do enjoy funking colorful toning as well as old Cabinet. Good thread idea. 

He's a few of my favorites:

Edited April 6 by Ryro

[Postvmvs]

I have a quinarius of Augustus that I unintentionally toned myself by leaving it in a paper flip for the last 20 or so years and forgetting about it, leading to iridescent blue-gold hues.

Apologies for the cell phone photos, at some point I need to invest in a proper camera setup. The coloring is much more striking in the hand.

Edited April 6 by Postvmvs

[Edessa]

Campania, Neapolis. AR Nomos (19mm, 7.33g, 6h). Circa 300-275 BC. Obv: Head of nymph right; behind, Artemis running right. Rev: ΝΕΟΠΟΛ[ΙTΩΝ]; Man-headed bull walking right; above, Nike flying right, placing wreath on bull's head. Ref: Sambon -; HN Italy 579; SNG ANS 352-4; SNG France 791; HGC 1, 451.

[Edessa]

British Anglo-Saxon. Anglo-Viking (Danish East Anglia). St. Edmund memorial coinage. Circa AD 895-918. AR Penny (xmm, xg, xh). Uncertain Mint in East Anglia; Ofbert, moneyer. Obv: +SC EΛIDN (S horizontal); Large A with chevron-shaped crossbar. Rev: +OFBERT; Small cross. Ref: SCBC 960; North 483. PCGS MS-64. Ex Stacks and Bowers Summer 2022 (24 Aug 2022), Lot 32161.

[Ancient Aussie]

Two of my favorite cabinet toned coins..

[ambr0zie]

I have this Geta denarius from Laodicea with an interesting rainbow toning. 

19 mm, 3,28 g.
Geta as Caesar 198-209 AD. AR denarius. Laodicea ad Mare. 198-200 AD.
L SEPTIMIVS GETA CAES, bare-headed, draped and cuirassed bust right / SPEI PERPETVAE, Spes advancing left, holding flower and raising hem of skirt.
RIC IV 96; BMC 688; RSC 192a.

Edited April 6 by ambr0zie

[AncientJoe]

I'm easily won over by nice toning, despite knowing that it's ultimately transient and in the fullness of time will become gray. That said, I do ensure I'm storing my coins in as inert of a manner as possible to avoid accelerating toning.

Here are a few of my favorites:

[Romismatist]

9 hours ago, Postvmvs said:

I have a quinarius of Augustus that I unintentionally toned myself by leaving it in a paper flip for the last 20 or so years and forgetting about it, leading to iridescent blue-gold hues.

Apologies for the cell phone photos, at some point I need to invest in a proper camera setup. The coloring is much more striking in the hand.

Looked at your description. This quinarius has an "ASIA RECEPTA" reverse and was minted at an Italian mint (Rome or Brindisi) not Ephesus. It proclaimed the extension of Augustus' authority to Asia which was previously under Marc Antony. 

[Postvmvs]

14 minutes ago, Romismatist said:

Looked at your description. This quinarius has an "ASIA RECEPTA" reverse and was minted at an Italian mint (Rome or Brindisi) not Ephesus. It proclaimed the extension of Augustus' authority to Asia which was previously under Marc Antony. 

Thanks for the correction. The tag in the photo is from the original seller. Perhaps older reference books attributed to Ephesus?

[Octavius]

Several pleasantly toned Roman silver coins....

[rvk]

On 4/6/2024 at 3:48 PM, AncientJoe said:

I'm easily won over by nice toning, despite knowing that it's ultimately transient and in the fullness of time will become gray. That said, I do ensure I'm storing my coins in as inert of a manner as possible to avoid accelerating toning.

Here are a few of my favorites:

Those are very nice.

Vespasian. 69-79 AD. AR Denarius (17mm, 3.54g). Ephesus mint. IMP CAESAR VESPAS AVG COS III TR P P P; Head of Vespasian, laureate, right / PACI AVGVSTAE; Victory, draped, advancing right, holding wreath extended in right hand and palm over left shoulder. EP[H]E lower right. RIC II 1431 (C2).

[Limes]

Thats a lovely toned siliqua Rasiel. Can you give some more info on the coin itself? 

Toning in combination with ancient coins is something peculiar. I remember my grandmother cleaning/polishing her table silver, that would turn grey/blackish over and over again. But somewhere, someone decided that on ancient coins it enhances the beauty of the coin. Would the ancients have done with their silver, clean it? 

Anyway, having said that, I do like toning. Every now and then I see if the toning on my coins has changed. I noticed that the siliqua shown below darkened a bit and developed addition 'rainbow' colouring. I tried to capture it on camera, which is quite difficult. The change in toning only took 3 years. 

[John Conduitt]

This one is very nicely toned when you move it in the light, but natural photos don't catch it.

Antoninus Pius Denarius, 158-159

Rome. Silver, 16x18mm, 3.11g. Head of Antoninus Pius, laureate, right; ANTONINVS AVG PIVS P P. Antoninus Pius, veiled, togate as a priest, standing left, sacrificing out of patera in right hand over tripod-altar left, holding roll in left hand at side; beside altar, a prostrate, slain bull; VOTA SOL DEC II; COS IIII ([RIC III, 291). From the Westbury Sub Mendip (Somerset) Hoard of 188 denarii, found in 2016 by a metal detectorist.

[Marsyas Mike]

These aren't exactly "beautiful" but they arrived in old paper envelopes that gave a nice, dark tone to them.  The green crud is an extra; I thought about trying to remove it, but it looks stable and since these mostly get cleaned to shiny white, I thought I'd leave them alone:  

[I_v_a_n]

I have beautifully toned Athens tet from pre-hoards time.

[rasiel]

18 hours ago, Limes said:

Thats a lovely toned siliqua Rasiel. Can you give some more info on the coin itself? 

Toning in combination with ancient coins is something peculiar. I remember my grandmother cleaning/polishing her table silver, that would turn grey/blackish over and over again. But somewhere, someone decided that on ancient coins it enhances the beauty of the coin. Would the ancients have done with their silver, clean it? 

Anyway, having said that, I do like toning. Every now and then I see if the toning on my coins has changed. I noticed that the siliqua shown below darkened a bit and developed addition 'rainbow' colouring. I tried to capture it on camera, which is quite difficult. The change in toning only took 3 years. 

Hi Limes, that's a siliqua of Flavius Victor from Mediolanum, c.488 CE

Anyway, whenever you see iridescence (be it on coins like ours, a butterfly's wings or an oil sleek on pavement) what you are seeing is a gradient of very, very thin material which acts like a prism. The blue, for example, is an area that just happens to be about 450 nanometers in thickness (a human hair is, for comparison, nearly a million nanometers thick!). A sheet of something that is translucent at this thickness, and which also happens to have a substrate which is reflective, will bounce back light that is primarily in the blue range of the visual spectrum. A little thicker, say 600 nm, and your eyes will perceive it as orange. If the adhesions continue to thicken past around 700nm light can no longer get down to the bottom layer and all the way back through. Those photons of light have been "absorbed", or trapped, and can't make it back to your eyes so what you see is, well, just ordinary black gunk.

For ancient coins you have three major metals. There is copper, an element which is vulnerable to oxidation and other chemical reactions which makes it unlikely to develop the even and thin films necessary for this effect to happen. There is gold which refuses to combine with any other chemical, making it difficult for anything to stick to it. And then there is silver which sits somewhere in the middle. Unlike most other metals, silver is impervious to atmospheric oxygen so it can keep its metallic luster indefinitely in the presence of most things in the environment. But silver is vulnerable to sulfur which is an element present in air in microscopic quantities. A silver coin is basically like a magnet to which it's attracted. As the sulfur is deposited, it chemically combines with the silver to form silver sulfide - tarnish. As explained above, the layer of tarnish is mostly transparent when very thin but quickly thickens past the 700nm mark and begins obscuring the coin beneath. Leave your Constantine exposed long enough and it will turn as black as grandma's silverware. Arresting the tarnishing at this elegant stage is as simple as putting it in an airtight container that is free of sulfur (no rubber or paper). 

You can see that on many of the coins posted on this thread the toning seems to be clustered around the lettering and the base of the portraits or other areas of relief. This is due, I think, to the effects of microcurrents. On the relatively smooth areas of a coin (the fields) the currents are unimpeded so little of the sulfur carried aloft has the chance to settle but then the currents hit those edges and at a microscopic level it's like hitting a mountain ridge. This allows the sulfur particles suspended to fall down and bond to the silver. The importance of this is that it can be used to determine if the toning has occurred through natural processes or is artificial. A coin that is intentionally toned will more likely have very even and often garish rainbow swathes of color irrespective of the coin's differing areas of relief. This is because it can be done quickly using a solution or given a blast of hot air. So, just another thing to watch out for ;- )

Rasiel

[Brennos]

A Lovely chocolate patina with golden hues on this stater of Kroton

Bruttium. Croton. 530-500 BC. Stater, 7,18g (12h)
O/ ϘΡΟ - TON. Tripod, legs surmounted by wreaths and terminating in lion's feet, two serpents emerging from the bowl, set on basis of three lines, the center dotted ; cable border.
R/ Same type, incuse ; striated border
HGC Italy 1444, HN Italy 2075, SNG ANS 235 (same obv. die), Gorini p.21 5

[Meander]

Quite a number of argentei tend to have a beautiful iredescent toning. 

Maximianus I. Herculius, 286-305. Argenteus, 294, Augusta Treverorum (Trier). RIC 102b.

Photo credit: Busso Peus Nachf.