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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;dougsmit, post: 3262522, member: 19463&quot;]I see part of this problem traceable to influence of people with a lot of money coming to the hobby with previous experience in other art forms like oil paintings and sculptures.&nbsp; An oil painting with a tear and layers of grime is considered &#039;conserved&#039; when it is rebacked, repaired and repainted to fill in blank places.&nbsp; Sculpture are glued back together, sometimes like it was originally and sometimes not, to make something that can stand as ancient beauty rather than rubble.&nbsp; This is more than acceptable to most and some now want to paint statues with colors that may represent the original look of the work.&nbsp; In coins, we have always expected untouched originals.&nbsp; Tooling is definitely out and we argue amongst ourselves where acceptable cleaning stops and smoothing (evil) or tooling (major evil) begin.&nbsp; I can see how someone who has been accustomed to buying these other art formats in the $10,000 to $10,000,000 bracket might look at this tooled coin as normal and beautiful when applying the standards of their past experience. </p><p><br /></p><p>I am not saying that fine art of any format should not be repaired when damaged.&nbsp; We keep hearing of damage by vandals to great works.</p><p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vandalism_of_art" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vandalism_of_art" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vandalism_of_art</a></p><p>The difference here is that we coin minded people do not accept the idea of taking a $1000 coin and &#039;improving&#039; it with $5000 worth of skilled labor to produce a $10,000 masterpiece.&nbsp; A painting by Rembrandt with a giant slash across the face would be accepted as &#039;healed&#039; given this repair.&nbsp; Many of us have had surgery leaving scars that do not prevent us from being considered human beings.&nbsp; The fact that it was done would be praised as a miracle and the restoration artist/doctor would be thanked for such fine work.&nbsp;&nbsp; Most of us here would be happy to see those responsible for tooling coins locked up for the rest of their lives with a restraining order that they never again be within a hundred feet of a coin.&nbsp; I applaud the seller of this coin for proper labeling. I doubt that the next sale of the item will be so well handled.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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