Antinous again - what do we think?

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i agree on sand, tooled not sure there is

 

i do not agree, on your comment on Zurqieh.
i have many coins from him, extra sand yes no tooling

 

same coin as op
i see no Tooling

 

I'd love to get an Antinous Drachm, but so far they seem exceedingly rare. Got to keep my eyes open for one. If I could score one, I'm sure it would be a pretty good investment.

 

why would you want one is such a poor condition?????

 

I agree with the remark about condition.

A quick search at the CNG site shows three pieces; a hemidrachm from the original period, a Paduan, and a fantasy piece from the late 19th - early 20th centuries. The only genuine piece fetched $4500. Vcoins is dominated by tesserae which are moderately priced, but lack detail. Anything bronze and original is over $2500. Harlan Berk once pointed out to me that when coins are at that level, most of the qualified potential buyers won't buy a defective piece. It is therefore very easy to overpay for a defective coin since at this level it may well be hard to resell later.

 

We return to the question as to whether something that does not exist in high grade even exists at all. When something is known in three examples and the best of the three is only fine, there is no market among those who only tolerate EF and better.

Show a better one of the medallion. Not everyone considers every type from every city to be the same just because it is an Antinoos. The market for this particular coin has now lost those (myself included) who find the most recent tooling intolerable. Before it had lost all those who found it ugly. One more step and it will cease to exist in polite company and someone will buy it for $2 at a flea market.

 

Gold and silver get smoothed and tooled as well. It is a bigger problem for bronzes but certainly not exclusive to them.

This coin was rightfully called out by Roma for having "extensively tooled details" and is in my opinion rather obvious when you look close. Notice the huge difference in condition of the surfaces in various areas of the coin where the forger has inadvertently exposed what appears to be a quite crystalline interior and then attempted to smooth it down while engraving details. Even if you don't recognize the style these sorts of inconsistencies are what you want to look for:

Here is another example sold by Roma but correctly described as tooled. The tooling is not extensive on this denarius but a close inspection will reveal it. Can you tell where it is?

 

Around the "I" (and a bit around "LEG")? maybe a bit on the prow?

 

Most of what you're seeing are cleaning marks. The actual tooling here is the removal of an I that was to the left of the I on the reverse, in an attempt to make this a "LEG I"(which isn't believed to actually exist) from a common "LEG II".

 

Ah! I should have thought of that! Good puzzle.

 

For me tooling is what i do not want.
i find it sometimes very hard to spot in bronze, so i buy them by accident

this one is on ebay now

 

according seller this is a foure, behind her head the silver is pressed down
no tooling i believe him