@7Calbrey This is just my subjective opinion: To me there are two main types of tooling. Professional tooling purposely done to improve the grade of a coin and deceive a buyer, and the more honest tooling that often occurs during the cleaning process. By cleaning process I mean the careful scraping away of deposits and blemishes on an ancient coin which often invariably results in some tooling, or at least a lightly tooled look. Often I can live with that even if the coin cleaner gets a little carried away here and there!
Some dealers might call this tooling, but most of the auction houses that I have dealt with usually call this "smoothing."
You can judge how serious a dealer or auction house just carefully reading all their comments not only grading. Those who never mention cleaning, smoothing, tooling are not serious ones and to avoid.
I'm sure someone with the requisite experience will eventually answer you, most members of this forum are US or Europe ie they are still asleep or just waking up. There's no need to post the same question numerous times, bumping numerous old threads.
It is often possible to spot a fake coin from a photograph, but it is not possible to say with 100% certainty that a coin is genuine. There may be evidence of forgery that you might spot in hand but is not apparent in the photo. (For example, a seam along the edge.) That said, the better the photo, the better your chance of spotting this evidence. The photo above is not very good. Stylistically, the coin in your photo looks fine, but some of the surface blemishes concern me. Personally, I would not buy that coin unless: 1) I could see a better photo, and 2) it was being sold by a reputable dealer who guarantees each coin's authenticity.
The coin weighs 4.2 g and is 18mm in diameter it was purchased from a seller in cyprus he stated in his advert that he was an accg patron.
If Barry says it looks fine, then it most probably is fine; however, there are certain countries I shy away from when buying Ancients. Cyprus is one of those.
Hi @7Calbrey, Everyone will have an option at every point in the spectrum from “no tooling is acceptable”, to “it’s ok if noted” to what you said, and everything in between. All are acceptable to me. Live and let live. I only despair that it temps sellers to make some coins I might have bought no longer interesting to me. It thins the population of coins acceptable to me (and possibly increases those for others like you). I would not normally buy a painting that had areas painted over or a wood carving or cameo that had been recarved or “enhanced” by some tooling that did not come from the Original artist. If those changes to the original were not disclosed I would feel cheated, which explains why many ethical codes prohibit such business practices. However, if you can see your way to accepting these, fine. I won’t criticize that position. It’s just not how I collect my coins. - Broucheion