I mention in another thread a while back I thought a coin might be tooled. Someone asked what tooling is...there are varying stages of tooling...some might tool a coin lightly to bring out a bit of detail, some might, in essence, carve the full image back on a coin that has been worn down almost completely... Tooling is when a person takes a very worn coin and carves the detail back...some people are good at this and when done right it might even fool people...some...well...here is a good example of a terrible tooled coined that was posted on another forum...it might be the WORST case of tooling I have ever seen...many tooled coins are not so obvious but this is a good one to use because pretty much every problem a tooled coin might have is represented here...and as a side note, this coin sold for 750.00 dollars...most likely all it was originally when found was a slug...this coin seems completely carved and colored.... This is supposed to be a Nero Claudius Drusus Coin. Estimated price 950!! Authenticity 'Garantied!' Here is the actual coin...even on the worst of days, missing an eye and hung over or drunk the Roman did not produce such awful coins and even in the late empire they did not product such garbage. This is one of the men I took my handle for because I think not only are his REAL coins stunning (most from this time are), they were great roman figures... This person just bilk someone out of 750 dollars and sold a coin worth 000!!
Wow, that's some mega tooling. It's a shame how many of the big bronzes on eBay have been messed with. With a little looking some folks have actually found the auctions for un-messed with coins & then the relisting after the tooling's been done. Here's a coin from the Bosporus Kingdom that's been heavily tooled (many coins from that area come up with tooling), in this case from one of my favorite VCoins dealers, but unlike most eBay auctions this one was sold as tooled.
Let's have a more obvious example here This is a damaged Paul I poltina (which is rather uncommon) If you notice the center of the coin, you can notice that there are scratches so that the letter "I" is made to feature out. Obviously this is a rather worn coin. On top of that, the coin is a plugged coin, as in, it was originally holed and then later plugged in with a piece of metal solder inside.
JeromeLS, it defintely is plugged. If you look carefully at 8o'clock of the obverse or 4 oclock on the reverse (biblicial text), you can see some modification was made after the plug. (Look carefully in between the letter "A" and the crown on the obverse) Not too obvious at first glance but it is there. A Paul I poltina isn't easy to obtain in any grade - even a damage one do cost a fair amount. Last I saw on molotok, there were 3 damaged/tooled/worn examples and all sellers were relucant to sell any less than 300USD. Obviously no one bothered to bid on them.
On the example I posted, its so poorly done that the fake patina is not covering the original surface on the edges, you can clearly see the change. With that coin...it pretty much IS a fake as there is no part of the original coin design remaining. Almost all coins that look like this (etched) are tooled and not faked from scratch. You can buy an original worn slug like this for extremely cheap. I have quite a few sitting around with just a faint outline of detail from uncleaned lots. There may be just enough of the outline of the the original minting to give you a clue as to what coin it was and where to etch...It just makes it easier to etch a coin like this then to etch something from scratch on a brand new flan...Making a new flan isnt the hardest thing in the world to do, but why do it when you may have 5 REAL ancient slugs sitting around. Plus you have the advantage of being able to be partially telling the truth when you buy it...it IS a real ancient coin...and if tested the metal will check out and to be honest...weights fluctuate with ancient coins, they arent near as exact as they are today. Most of these people, if not all, are etching on already existing slugs, they do not make new flans to etch on. Also...the coin is without doubt etched not struck. I have watched on ebay as a person will buy a lot of coins in poor shape (mostly larger As or Sestertius)...then...those coins will come up for sale but they will be much more detailed. There are people out there tracking this. I saw a case where a guy was selling an Antoninus Pius coin with good detail on ebay...but if you look at what he bought...you see that he bought the same Antoninus Pius coin (or a lot of hard to identify large roman coins). Its obvious the guy (and he isnt the only one) is buying old worn coins and etching detail into them to resale for a huge profit. One just needs to be careful... I posted this one because although it is a glaringly tooled coin...even well tooled coins will often have the same 'feel' to it...like the details around quite as refined an delicate...hair might look wrong, fields are flat and completely smooth....etc...
