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<p>[QUOTE="IMP Shogun, post: 7798713, member: 114683"]Good morning everyone,</p><p><br /></p><p>I absolutely love large bronze coins. For complete disclosure, I also like silver, gold, all kinds of AE and even billon alloy coins.</p><p><br /></p><p>I'm having a lot of difficulty identifying coins that are tooled because of general differences of style even within the same reference. Right now it seems price is what I use, if it's too cheap it's probably smoothed and tooled. There are quite a few coin auctions that do not describe this well in the descriptions. CNG and Leu in my experience do the best job of calling out those things that are sometimes difficult to see from pictures until you get it magnified. Roma (a firm I use quite a bit) tends not to at all. Not to mention things like <b>porosity <i>(clearly an issue below)</i></b>, cleaning scratches or other things that may need some magnification to properly identify.</p><p><br /></p><p><i>Probably as likely as Diocletian's price controls working</i> - I'd love to see a standard way of describing what I consider key deficiencies in coins.</p><p><br /></p><p>At the risk of breaking a rule, and hurting my own chances of winning, I'm looking at this sestertius of Trajan:</p><p><br /></p><p><img src="https://media.biddr.com/media/img/auction_lots/1875/2042359_1625765362.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p>RIC 459 has at least two obverse bust styles and likely more than that different reverses - specifically the location of the S, to the right or left of the child figure.</p><p><br /></p><p>By way of example, the above obverse just doesn't feel right, mostly the S and also the wrist and cloak design on Abundantia (I'm not saying it has to be a die match, clearly is not, a style thing):</p><p><br /></p><p><img src="https://ikmk.smb.museum/image/18207843/rs_exp.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p><a href="http://numismatics.org/ocre/id/ric.2.tr.459_sestertius" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://numismatics.org/ocre/id/ric.2.tr.459_sestertius" rel="nofollow">Online Coins of the Roman Empire: RIC II Trajan 459 (sestertius) (numismatics.org)</a></p><p><br /></p><p>I can't tell if the this is a rough cleaning/smoothing job or if it's tooled. It's apparent to me there is smoothing of the patina, I could see it described as lightly smoothed. I'm pretty much ok with that given the price, but tooled I'm going to pass.</p><p><br /></p><p>My other guess it's an unlisted variation that looks an awful lot like RIC 460 a Trajan dupondius, copying designs on different denominations is not unusual for this series:</p><p><br /></p><p><a href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/C_R-11996" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/C_R-11996" rel="nofollow">coin | British Museum</a></p><p><br /></p><p>So Is it tooled?</p><p><br /></p><p>If it doesn't feel good, it's not?[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>
[QUOTE="IMP Shogun, post: 7798713, member: 114683"]Good morning everyone, I absolutely love large bronze coins. For complete disclosure, I also like silver, gold, all kinds of AE and even billon alloy coins. I'm having a lot of difficulty identifying coins that are tooled because of general differences of style even within the same reference. Right now it seems price is what I use, if it's too cheap it's probably smoothed and tooled. There are quite a few coin auctions that do not describe this well in the descriptions. CNG and Leu in my experience do the best job of calling out those things that are sometimes difficult to see from pictures until you get it magnified. Roma (a firm I use quite a bit) tends not to at all. Not to mention things like [B]porosity [I](clearly an issue below)[/I][/B], cleaning scratches or other things that may need some magnification to properly identify. [I]Probably as likely as Diocletian's price controls working[/I] - I'd love to see a standard way of describing what I consider key deficiencies in coins. At the risk of breaking a rule, and hurting my own chances of winning, I'm looking at this sestertius of Trajan: [IMG]https://media.biddr.com/media/img/auction_lots/1875/2042359_1625765362.jpg[/IMG] RIC 459 has at least two obverse bust styles and likely more than that different reverses - specifically the location of the S, to the right or left of the child figure. By way of example, the above obverse just doesn't feel right, mostly the S and also the wrist and cloak design on Abundantia (I'm not saying it has to be a die match, clearly is not, a style thing): [IMG]https://ikmk.smb.museum/image/18207843/rs_exp.jpg[/IMG] [URL='http://numismatics.org/ocre/id/ric.2.tr.459_sestertius']Online Coins of the Roman Empire: RIC II Trajan 459 (sestertius) (numismatics.org)[/URL] I can't tell if the this is a rough cleaning/smoothing job or if it's tooled. It's apparent to me there is smoothing of the patina, I could see it described as lightly smoothed. I'm pretty much ok with that given the price, but tooled I'm going to pass. My other guess it's an unlisted variation that looks an awful lot like RIC 460 a Trajan dupondius, copying designs on different denominations is not unusual for this series: [URL='https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/C_R-11996']coin | British Museum[/URL] So Is it tooled? If it doesn't feel good, it's not?[/QUOTE]
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[expertly] Tooled and [lightly] Smoothed
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