Just noticed that I don't see toned maple leafs like I do toned ASE and other toned silver coins like 90% silver coins. Why is that? Is it harder for toning to take place on the maple leafs being they contain more silver? Is it harder for the coin doctors to tone the maple leafs? Just wondering...
The higher the silver content, the more active the reaction. Different national mints can have different anti-tarnish treatments to limit toning/corrosion on their non-business products. I am not sure if the RCM does it or not. There doesn't seem to be the same interest in making toned maple leaf coins as ASE.
The Canadian mint washes their planchets just like the US mint does. I've never heard of a mint that does not wash their planchets. And for all practical purposes the ASE and the Maple Leaf have the same metal composition. ASE is .9993, Maple Leaf is .9999. So the answer to your 2nd and 3rd questions AJ is no. As to why you don't see them, more likely than not it's because not as many people display them, (post pics of them). There probably are just as many toned Maple Leaf coins as there are toned ASE's, and maybe even more. Toning on any coin is more the result of storage conditions/environment than it is anything else.
Interesting, thanks for the replies. I look mostly on ebay. If you search toned american silver eagles you see them. Heck just search american silver eagles and you see toned ones. If you can even find a maple leaf on ebay that says anything about being toned it's only around the outer edge. I don't care for toned coins myself. I buy ASE and ML just to stack. Don't care if they are toned or not, just so the price is right. Anyway just struck me as odd that you don't see toned ML like you do toned ASE. How about other bullion coins from around the world?
Silver is silver, it is going to tone period. Yes I agree 100% that .999 silver is more reactive than .900 silver. But that is assuming that both are stored in the same place and under the exact same conditions. As I said before, the thing that makes the silver tone at all is just plain air. Expose the silver to the air and it is going to tone - no way to stop it. But you have to realize that the air is different all over the place. And the air inside your home is different than the air outside your home. And the air inside your neighbor's home can easily be different than the air in your home. That's because it depends on so many different things. Things can change the air inside your home are the type of heating system you have, the cooling system you have, the cooking system you have, the different foods you cook and how often, how you cook those foods as in fry, bake, broil, boil, etc etc, whether you smoke or not, whether you use a humidifier or a dehumidifier or neither one. Even the carpet and the paint inside your home makes a difference in how your coins tone. Everything makes a difference. Where you live also makes a difference. Are there factories in your town and what kind of factories, and how many. Is there are river, a lake, ponds, creeks, how often does it rain, what is the relative humidity and how often and how radically does it change. It all makes a difference. And then you have all of the differences in the way you store your coins. All of that, everything, makes a difference.
