i am starting a new ancients collection. The seller of one greek coin i was looking at said the coin was brushed? I am not familiar with brushed, what does it mean? Is it a nice way to say tooled? I am not new to ancient collecting but i have not seen that used before. Please educate me. Thanks.
I would read it as improperly cleaned, and I would expect that depending on how severe: wire brush marks, scratches, and reduced detail. Although this NGC Guide is for modern coins - similar language applies. The term doesn't show up for NGC Ancients Grading notes.
Thats it Thank you @Sulla80 , the coin is slabbed and graded. The term was in dealers notes but not on the slab notes. Two reasons I held off purchasing that item. I was not understanding his note ,and i would have to unslab it. Ty
I recently noticed that out of the 800 Greek coins currently in HA there are several NGC slabbed marked as brushed. This can't be a coincidence. I bet that NGC recently started to note this on the slab. Maybe @Barry Murphy could elucidate us?
BenSi, I've noticed the same thing that pprp posted. A lot of brushed ancient coins have been appearing in Heritage auctions, recently 4 Byzantine solidi. Some of these coins look pretty ugly with deep lines & others you'll need a loupe to spot the brushing. I think, in the past, instead of noting this on the slab NGC just gave the coin a poor surface designation. With their new economy grading that doesn't list a strike & surface designation they will label the slab brushed if the coin was brushed. I don't ever recall seeing the word brushed on a PCGS slab.
Brushed is a term we use to indicate that a coin has been either heavily wiped with a cloth (usually with gold) or actually brushed with a wire brush, and there are fine scratches across the surface of a coin. It's not a new term, we've been using it since I started almost 5 years ago. We use it on both net graded coins and full graded coins with strike and surface designations. The economy grading tier isn't new, it's been around since Vagi started here 10 years ago. Barry Murphy
