Van Dyke Brown toning options

After a long stay with Cyanotypes I felt it was time to move up towards something different so I chose Van Dyke Brown as a next thing to do. Getting the Silver Nitrate was an initial difficulty because a local shop asked 300euro for 100gr of Silver Nitrate (way too expensive for me). So I decided to make my own by just buying pure silver and use some Nitric Acid I had still standing around, this way it was only 60euro instead of the 300euro. I tried a few VDB prints already and all seem to go well but then I read that unless they are toned they apparently don't last long, you need to tone them to keep them good (or so the story goes). OK, quick search around I saw you had to do that with gold/platinum/palladium toners which not only are impossible to find in Belgium but also seem to cost a truckload of money. So I wonder if there is any other way to tone them in a more economical way? I read a comment in and old threat that you could tone them with mercury (I have a decent quantity of that standing around collecting dust) or is it possible to tone them in something like Ilford selenium toner? The Selenium toner I can still get for reasonable price but the gold/platinum/palladium route is just out of my current budget at the moment. Anybody an idea?

Wow, 79 views and nobody knows? I must have asked the impossible question here.

VD Browns are a silver process and can be toned with selenium, or anything else which tones a silver gelatin print. Gold is the long time standard and it produces beautiful tones, but selenium works well. Even tea and coffee work.
As for longevity, I have some more than 20 years old which were never toned and show absolutely no fading.

Have fun!

Thanx for you reply Jim.

Selenium toner contains ammonium thiosulphate (or fixer) which will can fade a vandyke. They say it can be used at high dilutions, I've never used selenium with vandykes. You need to try Gold toner. It does look quite stunning! If you use a flat bottom tray, you can use very small amounts of toner ( 25ml for an 8x10). That way it's really not that expensive. I buy my gold chloride 1% solution from B&S (100ml is about $60). The recipe I use is Clerc's Thiourea toner - 12.5 ml of gold chloride will make 250ml of toner. You might even get a few prints out of that 25ml of toner? However, I just use it once.

Ditto on using Clerc's Thiourea toner - it looks wonderful. Pt toner is nice.. but oh the $$$$

Yeah, the price is the problem for me at the moment, going back to study and being single at the age of 37 leaves me financially crippled so that's why I want to try to find toning options that are less costly.

I wonder if it's possible to use following products to tone a VDB:

Lead Acetate: Got a bottle of that standing around collecting dust, since it's soluble in water (unlike many other lead compounds) I wonder if it's possible to use it. Yeah it's poisonous but I can collect the waste and turn it in at a waste disposal centre, so no harm to nature

Lead Nitrate: Rather easy to make but unfortunately also poisonous.

Mercury Chloride: Since I have quite some mercury standing around this is an option but due it's toxicity I would rather go another way, it would be my last resort.

Copper Chloride: Perhaps the most safe way? Not too difficult to make yourself and while toxic not as dangerous as the others.

Any insight?