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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;IdesOfMarch01, post: 1768634, member: 39084&quot;]I strongly subscribe to this point of view.&nbsp; Once a coin crosses the (admittedly somewhat fuzzy) line of &quot;smoothing&quot; into &quot;tooling,&quot; I begin to wonder what&#039;s the point of collecting the coin at all.&nbsp; Why not just buy a good-looking, well struck &quot;replica&quot; if you&#039;re willing to accept known tooling in a coin?&nbsp; Really, why bother to care about the authenticity of the coin if tooling becomes acceptable?</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Roman bronzes are <i>extremely</i> hard to evaluate for minor tooling unless you have decades of experience and real expertise.&nbsp; While many bronzes have obvious tooling, some are so subtle that even experts disagree about where smoothing ends and tooling begins.&nbsp; But once you start down that slippery slope of accepting <i>some</i> tooling, you&#039;ve discarded the notion of authenticity and might as well not consider yourself a true collector at all.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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