When does "traces of tooling" become "tooled within an inch of it's life"

Didius Julianus Sestertius

IMP CAES M DID SEV IVLIAN AVG, laureated head of Julian to right.
RECTOR ORBIS/S-C Didius Julianus left, wearing toga and holding globe in his right hand.
Described by dealer as "( traces of tooling ) otherwise extremely fine, well struck , attractive blue- green patina , split of minting."

I think that there is more than a trace of tooling......

 

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It would be interesting to see the coin before it got 'traced'. The dealer strikes me as one to avoid just in case he has other coins that were done well enough that it was less obvious.

 

There is a significant difference between "tooling" and "smoothing". IMO The average collector should be able to understand cleaning and the desire or necessity to finish without changing the details.

 

It also seems suspicious, that none of the flan cracks, seem to go all the way through the coin. It makes me wonder, if it is a cast fake.

 

I would not consider that an ancient coin anymore. I would be embarrassed to have that in my collection. It's a cartoon. A modern cartoon of an ancient coin drawn on old metal.
I don't think it makes anyone a "purist" to think that tooling is awful in general. The cons that do it, do it for money, not to preserve the coin. They ruin them to make a buck. I think the term preservist or conservist might be more apt for those who refuse to buy tooled.

 

This is why I'm always much more reluctant to buy Roman bronzes, as opposed to silver or even billon coins: tooling and smoothing appear to be so common that the better condition a bronze coin is purportedly in, the more concerned I am that it's been altered. Unless I really trust the dealer to recognize and disclose that kind of thing.

 

Terrible example of excessive tooling. My advice is to steer clear.

 

idk...looks to be a modern copy to me....

 

This thread makes me wonder, why is it acceptable for an ancient marble bust (or literally any other artifact) can be 'repaired' and it's worth raises among the potential customers if it ever comes to the market, but for a coin, something more than a cleaning and some repairs that significantly raises its profile would not only remove the coin from the market, but also shunned as a numismatic pariah?!

 

the portrait does not correspond with any of the Didius Julianus sestertius obverse dies. This is just a fake.

 

They are soooo different. Awful analogy and I really don't feel like dragging this stale conversation back to life.
If you think that coin is cherry then sorry but it ain't *edit and @GinoLR has just pointed out one more reason why it's not cool. Cause you can say it's tooled when it's just another modern fake!
Destroying history to make a buck or to acquire a type you wouldn't be able to have is just that.
Not everything needs botox, fillers and silicone.

 

Tooling and smoothing is a slippery slope. If something is represented as authentic and indeed is tooled, then that is a big problem. If noted by the seller, e.g. 'Minor smoothing" it's not much better IMHO. If the image impressed by the dies is altered, then the work of the original craftsman is lost. Hence, I would prefer a more worn coin then something that is pristine but has been altered. Anyway, to each his own I suppose.

 

Sorry; couldn't stop myself in time. (Yep, other people have posted while this was in progress.) This is one, apparently structural phenomenon that goes some distance toward vindicating collectors who have a more relaxed attitude toward condition generally. (For instance, who actually like earlier medieval coins, with their historical resonance as the primary criterion.)
Past a certain point, thanks to this nefarious practice, the endemic emphasis on esthetics among Classical collectors ends up being a zero-sum game. Do you want an historical artifact (or, as I like to say, a miniature historical document), or something pretty ...ultimately for its own sake?
Even with earlier medievals (c. 9th-13th centuries), you still get to deal with the issue of overcleaning. There, the irony is that a lot of what otherwise looks like recent hoard finds ends up being polished to a shine which fails to replicate what a given example never had, while arbitrarily destroying the patina that the coin acquired over centuries in the ground. --This is in reference to certain dealers, not people, some of whom post here, who actually know how cleaning is done. The irony you can wind up with is a coin which hasn't seen the light of day since it was buried, often within a year or two of its issue, which now looks like something you could find at a gift shop in Disneyland.
...This is all about the level to which some dealers are willing to stoop. Not to cast aspersions on folks who know what to look out for; more along the lines of, Why do dealers do this in the First Place? My recommendation to them would be, Go back to dealing in used cars. You'll make better money, from people who are as dumb as you wished they were.

 

Theoretically, 'smoothing' involves only patina. On a 'tooled' coin, the metal itself is moved. Unfortunately, these terms are not always used correctly.

@DonnaML makes a good point above. With all these ineptly and obviously tooled coins in the marketplace, one has to wonder where are the expertly and not-so-obviously tooled coins? Caveat emptor.

 

For what it is worth I would like to show one that I just finished. It is more than acceptable to me and doesn't seem to violate any protocol. This Valentinian I has a well defined obverse that I was able to get great detail and a smooth finish on the patina. The reverse was rougher and some details I had to leave as is. Since there are examples that could be used as a pattern, I could have removed build up and reveal the details. That I would consider to be tooling.

 

This is a rather heavily tooled Gallienus I have. I paid like $80, which I think is too much looking back on it.

The tooling is especially egregious on the reverse, where the letters' outlines were severely extra-defined, the folds in the drapery of Fortuna appear to have been completely invented, and mega-smoothing on the field. The obverse seems to have escaped the brunt of it, but overall it's something I would never buy again.

 

Thanks, @Inspector43, for your valued observation regarding the distinction between 'cleaning' and 'tooling.'
Right, thanks to the inherent limitations of the Englsih language (WS notwithstanding --granted, he did the best he could), it's true that all of this inhabits a slippery interpretive, and correspondingly semantic slope.
...Except, especially in the case of Roman detector finds, only most obviously from the 3rd and 4th centuries, cleaning is Called For.
You start to get a serious departure from this principle once a dealer does anything --after the initial find-- to make the coin 'prettier,' just to sell it.

 

The used car comparison is good. People won't buy a car full of water and seaweed after a flood but can be fooled into thinking a restored wreck is a good buy. People with money don't buy piles of rubble that once was a statue so they are restored. Poor people don't pay admission to museums to see those piles either. The difference is that there are a few (relatively speaking) coins that do not need extensive restoration so we can be selective about things like this. I do wonder how long it will be until the big money in coins will prefer restored to mint state over original fine. Some people feel that way now but it is not yet the majority opinion. I doubt I will live to see that changeover but I suspect our grandchildren will.

My definition of smoothing is localized manipulation of materials that were not on the coin when it left the mint. Tooling is the localized manipulation of materials that were part of the original coin. Cleaning is less selective (more general overall) than either of these and more people now engage in cleaning methods that remove the original metal surface (chemically or with electrolysis) that used to be fashionable. We each will have to decide on which step is tolerable and which is a deal breaker. How do you feel about carrying an ancient coin in your pocket to impart a naturally circulated look? Is rubbing a coin on a brick so you can read the legend better than willful smoothing with intent of making the coin look better? Would you rather have a great fake (British Museum electrotype, for example) or a pitiful scrap of 'original' metal that is hardly identifiable. The answers to these and a hundred other questions are not unanimous.

 

Dealers sell tooled coins because people will still buy them. I am not sure that someone would pay the asking price for this item if the seller were to be completely up front about the amount of rework done on a coin. In this case the coin is for sale by a dealer on one of the online multi-dealer platforms for Eur 3800. Would someone pay that price for it if it were described as "completely tooled"?

The used car comparison is certainly a good one. There is a practice where a car dealer will buy a car that has been written off by an insurance company due to the extent of the damage making it uneconomical to repair. The dealer repairs the car for resale and historically the buyer would be oblivious of the history. In the UK the car now has to be declared as Category N (non-structural damage write off - akin to smoothing) or Category S (structural or electrical damage - akin to tooling). People can make a conscious decision to buy the car if the price suits them.

 

This sestertius was tooled (or forged?) in the same style, maybe by the same workshop, but w/o the green patina - which is BTW the same green patina one can see on contemporary bronze sculptures.

It was auctioned in 2018 by NAC Auction 106 part II, lot 1575 (10/05/2018) and hammered 600 CHF (that is approx. USD 643). Just saying.