A couple of years ago I purchased the following sestertius of Agrippina (AD 42 – 43, RIC 102) at auction. The catalogue description (Roma e29 lot 482) correctly pointed out that this piece had been smoothed, so I knew what to expect for the coin surface. But since that time I’ve been troubled by what I think might be tooling in the high-wear area in the hair. What do you think? And if you think the hair was tooled, does this level of tooling require disclosure? Many thanks for your advice of the group. D
I'll go out on a limb and say I think the coin is wonderful and virtually without tooling--not enough (if any) to require disclosure. If you begin to dislike it, you can sell it to me (at a big loss)! I will like it!
Looks like a gorgeous unretouched coin to me, but I'm no expert when it comes to tooling. I assume most 1st century sestertii are smoothed (and am not particularly bothered by the practice). At first I wondered about the folds of drapery at that back and side of her neck but I see another high-grade example in ACsearch that is a die match and the folds look exactly the same (somewhat flattened-- see the coin below). On your coin her hair near over the ears is slightly worn (or the die didn't completely fill) and that looks believable. The highest points of your coin are very slightly worn (or unfilled), as would be expected for an untooled coin. Here's that coin:
I noticed on my sestertius of Agrippina struck under Caligula, her portrait demonstrates the same phenominon - you can still discern the visible curls underneath the wear around her temporal area. I think this is due to the way the dies were cut, and they just wear that way. My sestertius of Agrippina struck by Claudius also has evidence of this, but less so due to wear. I don't see evidence of tooling on any of these coins, your's included. A very respected dealer once told me that the word "tooling" could mean anything from overzealous cleaning to reengraving. Smoothing and cleaning are expected on the bronzes we collect which have passed nearly two thousand years in the earth.