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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Orielensis, post: 3642204, member: 96898&quot;]I don&#039;t arrogate to be able to give any qualified assessment of this coin. Also, even true experts cannot determine the authenticity of a coin based on images alone. There is a reason why authentication services such as David Sear&#039;s have you send in the coin itself and not only pictures.</p><p><br /></p><p>That said, there are a couple of things about your Hadrian that strike me as odd, and I will explain them below. Let&#039;s start by comparing your coin to an authentic Hadrian as with a very similar obverse from my collection:</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]977823[/ATTACH]</p><p>1.) You will immediately notice that the coin on the right appears to be much better preserved, or, in a terminology I don&#039;t particularly like, &quot;in higher grade.&quot; Allmost all details and letters are fully visible, there appears to be only little wear, the surfaces are even and smooth. This obviously doesn&#039;t make it a fake, but it justifies to ask: do we see (a) an exceptionally good coin, (b) a modern forgery, or (c) a tooled coin?</p><p><br /></p><p>2.) Looking closely at the details on hair, ear, and laurel wreath, it seems that the lines on the right coin are both stronger and a bit more coarse than on the left coin. It also appears that the right coin is a bit flatter. Notice that although there is ample hair detail, Hadrian&#039;s beard is quite worn.</p><p>All of this makes me suspect that your coin saw considerable wear and at some point looked similar to mine. Someone might have tried to &quot;enhance&quot; it by reengraving (&quot;tooling&quot;) the lost details. In hand, an expert should be able to confirm or confute this suspicion.</p><p><br /></p><p>3.) Let&#039;s talk about patina and surfaces. The coin on the left has a natural, slightly uneven malachite patina with all sorts of regular imperfections. Your coin, on the other hand, appears to have very smooth and even surfaces, a brown patina with some reddish spots, and some grey deposits. Notice that the red spots don&#039;t protrude, as they often do.</p><p>The brown on your coin looks like the color you get when treating copper with liver of sulfur and ammonia or similar substances. I would bet a fine Rebublican denarius that the &quot;sand patina&quot; deposits have been artificially applied to highlight details – a deplorable but common practice with some dealers. This would also explain the roughness behind the head Nicholas Molinari and others noted: here, not that much smoothing took place and some of the &quot;make-up&quot; got caught in the remaining roughness.</p><p><br /></p><p>Hence, if you asked me for a guess, which is categorically different from an opinion or even verdict, I&#039;d answer that maybe your coin has been at least partially depatinated, smoothed, tooled, chemically repatinated, and treated to some artificial dust in order to hide these alterations?</p><p><br /></p><p>If you seriously consider buying this coin or just want to know for sure, you probably should show it in hand to an experienced and trustworthy dealer or comparable expert. I would refrain from buying coins in this grade from sources that don&#039;t have guarantees of authenticity and a reputation of making inevitable mistakes good.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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