@red_spork Sorry for delay in responding. The rest of my non-numismatic life is happening. As you are aware, I saw this coin only minutes...
All great coins. The Faustina II with original surfaces is magnificent.
I'm actively reading about 4 books right now and one of them is "First Man In Rome", a novel about the rise of Marius and Sulla by Colleen...
It quite possibly improved the visual aesthetics of the coin, artificially. It might even have increased the value of the coin if the smoothing...
My personal opinion is that smoothing is little different than tooling. Both are done to improve the appearance of the coin. Tooling nearly...
Great coin with uncharacteristically sharp early reverse die state. Great writeup. I've looked at this issue frequently but never landed one....
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