Laughably tooled!

I would laugh at this attempt to increase the technical grade of this middle bronze of Faustina the Younger if it didn't make me so angry.



Here's the unadulterated version from my collection. I believe mine is a reverse die match to the Peus coin, above, so you can see the changes made by tooling. The obverse has been even more egregiously altered, giving the empress a hairstyle she never actually wore. When you look at the inscription, it might have been an obverse die match to mine, too, but it's been changed so much it's hard to tell.

Faustina II, AD 147-175.
Roman Æ as or dupondius, 9.96 g, 26 mm, 7 h.
Rome, mid AD 151-mid AD 152.
Obv: FAVSTINA AVG ANTONINI AVG PII FIL, bare-headed and draped bust, right (Beckmann type 3 hairstyle).
Rev: VENVS S C, Venus standing left, holding apple and scepter.
Refs: RIC 1408(6); BMCRE 2170-72; Cohen 251; RCV --; Strack 1311.​

Someone wasted 200 Euro on the toolie, too.

 

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Wow. Even I would recognize that as being tooled. This was sold at auction, or a retail sale? If the dealer was Dr. Busso Peus Nachf. in Frankfurt, I'm disappointed. I've had good experiences purchasing from that dealer.

 

An auction in 2010 and it didn't even mention the tooling. Very disappointed in Peus for this.

 

I think collectors of modern coinage dabbling in ancients drive this sort of thing, at least in part. I was one of those collectors once, and it took some time to see beyond the grade of an ancient coin, and into its soul - its numismatic, historic, and aesthetic qualities, rather than the sharpness of its devices and smoothness of its fields. Recently one of the forum members offered me this Ptolemaic "hockey puck" and I happily bought it because despite its lower grade (Fine), it is utterly and completely un-doctored...



Ptolemaic bronzes (especially larger denominations) are notorious for attracting toolers that would turn a $200 coin into a $700 coin. Sometimes it works. Sometimes the uneducated or unsuspecting buy the altered coin. Sometimes the buyer simply doesn't care. CNG sold this coin for $740 plus juice and was clearly marked tooled...

 

At what level of tooling does a coin become a mere fake? This 27 mm AE obol just looks like a modern fake, not at all like an EF ancient coin.

 

I'd be tempted to put them in a category near those coins struck with fake dies on ancient flans.

 

Really. Why not just buy an electrotype copy? At least they look like the real thing, although it never ceases to amaze me that electrotypes sometimes sell for hundreds of dollars. WHY?

 

I don’t think it is an easy process but I might be mistaken.

 

That tooling job really exaggerated her overbite!

 

Once an electrotype is made from an original, can it be reproduced infinitely? Or does each electrotype have to be separately made from an original? If it's the latter, I can understand why they were time-consuming to make and are generally quite expensive. Especially because most seem to have been made in the 19th Century from museum originals.

 

That was my thought as well. It looks like something you would buy in a gift shop.

 

Why do you say it’s been altered ? I do not see any tooling at all. I think you’re just jealous of this specimen because it has an unpublished hairstyle you don’t own in your collection. On what do you based your judgment? The only person agreeing with you is the poor guy who left a comment below the coin on acsearch. I’m gonna report this thread !

 

I believe the problem is that there are a number of well financed, new collectors who see an improvement in such coins just like they do when they expect from repaired oil paintings or reassembled statues. Some might tolerate tooling that strengthened a few letters but changing the hairstyle or even the ID of the person shown would be less acceptable. I can see the Faustina face shown here what she might have looked like had she lived another twenty years. Perhaps w should be glad they did not redo the legends and call the coin Manlia Scantilla. The toolers who committed these atrocities obviously had no feel for the style of the coins they were 'improving'. What worries me more are their co-workers who do have some clue as to what the original coin looked like. If this sort of thing is OK with major dealers as long as they flag the coin as such, what is the next step? Should we expect to see that Ptolemy offered again soon with a provenance listing the fact that the coin is ex. CNG?

I just looked up CNG 178, 47 and got this:


178, Lot: 47. Closing Dec 12, 2007 at 9:47:00 AM ET. PTOLEMAIC KINGS of EGYPT. Ptolemy II Philadelphos. 285-246 BC. Æ Obol (27mm, 17.37 g). Uncertain mint. Struck 285-265 BC.


Estimate $200
Sold For $740 (This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.)

If you click on that listing the detailed listing DOES include 'Tooled surfaces':

178, Lot: 47. Estimate $200.
Sold for $740. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

PTOLEMAIC KINGS of EGYPT. Ptolemy II Philadelphos. 285-246 BC. Æ Obol (27mm, 17.37 g). Uncertain mint. Struck 285-265 BC. Laureate head of Zeus right / Eagle with open wings standing left on thunderbolt; shield before. Svoronos 610; Weiser 18; SNG Copenhagen 114. EF, brown and green patina. Tooled surfaces.


From the Gregory Conlin Collection.

You are too nice. 'Clearly marked' would have been visible on the listing page, not requiring going to the details. These days too many people 'do' shopping on little phone screens. Bids can be placed (BAD IDEA) without reading the details 'hidden' on the next page.

Electrotypes are collectible in their own right rather like Paduans. We might question the prices paid but they were not made by the British museum to fool us but by a contract hourly worker (Robert Ready) augmenting his income:

https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/term/BIOG62820

Another reference pointed out that the issue price of the Ready electrotypes was 2s/6d. 30d (half a crown or 1/8 pound) was quite a bit of money in the day but he did good work.

If it did not require moving to London, I could be interested in an hourly paid, non staff position that allowed me to make such copies. Them my collection would be very attractive.

 

I wonder if it's possible that someone might have paid that absurd price without noticing the disclosure at the very end of the description, or without even knowing what "tooled surfaces" means, or that it's a negative attribute. In which case, I really don't have much sympathy.

Regarding electrotypes, there's a long and interesting article on their history and the process of making them at https://www.forumancientcoins.com/numiswiki/view.asp?key=Electrotype . It's still not entirely clear to me whether each electrotype has to be made from the original, or whether further electrotypes can be made from the first one.

 

And just to be sure you do nightmares tonight, here’s a little gift for you. (at least all these coins were marked as tooled). Enjoy !

 

I've also purchased from Nachf, a bronze coin no less (not a Faustina), and I'm also slightly disappointed. I hope my coin is not tooled or fake.
I noticed, that the ownership of Nachf changed in 2007. Perhaps they lost some of their knowledge and expertise, when that happened. Hopefully, they have gained it back, since then. I don't know.
I guess all auction houses make mistakes, now and then. However, this seems rather obvious, although I'm no expert on Faustina bronze coins, and I'm no expert on tooling. Maybe, Nachf forgot to look closely, at the OP coin.
I found the Nachf auction, and the OP coin. I didn't find it on ACsearch, but I found it on Nachf's web site. It's Lot 424.
Link to the seller photos : https://images.auex.de/img/5//62/00424q00.jpg
Link to Auction 400 on April 22, 2010 : https://peus-muenzen.auex.de/Auktion/KatalogArchiv
The OP coin sold for 200 euros, in 2010.
The seller description is in German, and is as follows.

"RÖMISCHE MÜNZEN | Kaiserliche Prägungen | misc
Lot 424
Antoninus Pius für Faustina II. As 145/161. Büste / Venus mit Apfel und Szepter. RIC 1408 C. 253 12.30 g. Rotgrüne Patina Sehr schön Sehr schön"

According to a German-to-English translation tool, that I found on Google, the English translation of the seller description, is as follows.

"ROMAN COINS | Imperial coins | mixed
Lot 424
Antoninus Pius for Faustina II As 145/161. Bust / Venus with apple and sceptre. RIC 1408 C. 253 12.30 g. Red-green patina Very nice very nice"

 

The Faustina is an awful piece with a never-before-seen hairstyle, as is the Ptolemaic obol. I've never seen such a clear picture of Zeus-Ammon so he looks like Rob Lowe back in the day.

 

Hilarious!!! It looks like Cornificia and Fadilla opened up a can ...



of BIG SISTERS BE GONE!!!!



This, of course, is what it's supposed to look like.

 

She looks much prettier on your coin RC.

 

All I can say about those tooled coins is yuck. And based on @Ocatarinetabellatchitchix 's post, they seem to be proliferating...