So I guess the toolers and smoothers have won?

This is the place we each must take sides. If you consider promoting tooling beautiful, vote and bid for the firms that play that game. If you prefer coins not to be tooled, send no money to the firms that tool even for coins that are not atlered. The same thing can be said for companies with high premiums, excessive postage or other fees, poor service or a bad attitude toward buyers. No dealer cares whether I bid in their sales or not but remember that even when you come in second and buy nothing, you are raising the price for the winner and sending money to the house rewarding them financially for doing business as they chose. I made my choice.

 

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While I agree that it's better if dealers disclose known tooling and smoothing, I will probably never agree that tooling is acceptable even if disclosed. Tooling coins as a course of commerce, to make them sell for more money, is reprehensible and insidious. It gives novice and non-collectors the idea that it's an acceptable way to treat ancient coins. It's not.

 

Not 'Tooled'......................................'Tooled'

 

I'm certainly not advocating tooling; I'm saying disclose it. There's a difference.

 

Well he's got a point there. I do look for beauty when I'm buying my women.

 

LOL!

 

Women? OK.
Tooling? Not OK

 

sad already 149 euro

http://www.ebay.nl/itm/LANZ-ROMAN-E...S-EMPEROR-SCARCE-BRONZE-GOD2565-/301927547430

 

Yah, there are a few fairly obvious touch-up areas, eh? (too bad, because it's a very cool coin)

 

I'm with Doug and everyone else on tooling and I agree with Carthago that it's right they announce it. Like Doug, I won't buy from sellers who do or sell this sort of thing.

 

The hair is usually a favorite spot for toolers - always look closely at the hair! I saw this auction and the reverse looked good, but the hair is tooled. And the tooling is NOT mentioned in this listing.

Unfortunately, Lanz is right. Tooled and smoothed coins sell. The above coin hammered just below $50. Would it have gone over $100 if the reverse had been made to match the obverse? Probably. Evidently it's what some collectors want.

 

Sorry about the sucky photo. I need to figure out a better way to to take pictures.

Does this look tooled? It's my brother's coin. I'm thinking the hair and legend might have had some work done.

Thanks for looking.

Erin

 

Some quick advice - out of the holder would probably make it easier and check out @dougsmit 's webpage here:
http://www.forumancientcoins.com/dougsmith/coinphoto2011ez.html

That is part one, be sure to read them all. With just a little bit of effort you can take some very nice photos.

 

Seriously, I do not read questions illustrated with coins in their stapled 2x2's or plastic flips as seriously interested in an answer about authenticity or minor details. The exact same image taken with coin in hand might have enough detail to expect an opinion on tooling but not the one here. Help us help you.

 

Thanks Jwt. Doug has an awesome set up! I only have my iPhone and the lighting in the house is awful.

It'll be so hard to save for a camera with so many coins on my list.

I took the coin out of the holder and here is what it looks like:





Thanks!

Erin

 

I'm terrible at identifying tooling or smoothing, but I'm not certain this is either. If it is, there might be tooling in the legend. Honestly, I do not think so.

 

I don't see anything amiss with that coin, Erin. The obverse has a stronger strike, but that's typical.

 

To my eye, this coins appears to be slightly (and completely acceptably) smoothed but not tooled.

I can't quite make out the entire obverse legend so I'm unable to identify it in RIC but the reverse clearly appears to be "Victory flying left, holding in both hands shield inscribed SPQR."

For a coin like this, tooling most likely would be done on the reverse to make the shield more defined as well as the SPQR that would appear on the shield.

 

Well, it certainly looks a whole lot sweeter out of that 2x2 flip (great effort releasing that poor lil' prisoner)

Hi Erin => ummm, I don't see any ridiculously obvious tooling (it is a bit difficult to tell whether the nose and profile have been altered, for the shadow is kind of hiding those details) ... oh, and I fully admit that I'm a bit like Bing and sometimes I fail to notice a few of the minor tooling details ...

=> but overall I think your bro's coin is a nice collection-addition

Again, that was a great rescue mission, releasing the poor coin from its plastic cell (it must feel quite a bit nicer in-hand, eh?)

 

I see nothing wrong with the coin. Be happy with it. It was cleaned acceptably as is the best we can hope for on ancients. The shield on the reverse shows the S and R of SPQR which is better than some. Compare to the one below which has more legend but less SPQR. There are several variations on the obverse legend but I suspect your matched mine originally.

Also compare to this one on acsearch which gives catalog numbers (I did not check to see if they are correct because I do not have those volumes and do not believe it appropriate to derive numbers from secondary sources).
https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=2406559
The acsearch coin is listed as nearly EF which I find hilarious considering the lack of SPQR on it but they do acknowledge light smoothing which is pretty standard for coins like this. I suspect many people would have recut the SPQR on it making it really look EF but then it would be tooled and untouchable to most of us. Now look at this one with bold SPQR graded Good VF pointing out the reason that grading ancients is a matter of opinion rather than fact and why many of us don't bother with letter grades on our coins either.
https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=2529443

If you search acsearch or other sources you will find other legends and other mints for this reverse. Nero specialists may want them all.
https://www.acsearch.info/search.ht...s=1&currency=usd&thesaurus=1&order=0&company=