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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Fugio1, post: 4085092, member: 89970&quot;]My personal opinion is that smoothing is little different than tooling.&nbsp; Both are done to improve the appearance of the coin.&nbsp; Tooling nearly always reduces the value of the coin, but in some cases, smoothing is probably necessary and justifiable in order to recover a corroded coin.&nbsp; Smoothing that displays directional tooling/cleaning marks is a significant deterrent for me.&nbsp;&nbsp; The biggest problem in today&#039;s market is that smoothing is so common on AE, that many auction cataloguers do not mention it even when it is obvious from the photograph.&nbsp;&nbsp; I&#039;ve noticed CNG is the exception here - If there is any trace of smoothing it is mentioned.&nbsp;&nbsp; These coins routinely sell at their auctions for low hammer prices, even if they appear to be wonderful examples.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>Interestingly, I recently bid on a late Roman bronze listed by a German auction house.&nbsp;&nbsp; The image had no indication of smoothing.&nbsp; After bidding, I noticed the description as auto-translated to English was that the coin was &quot;smoked&quot;.&nbsp;&nbsp; I thought this was a description of the color, but to be sure, I emailed the auction company.&nbsp; Their response was that &quot;smoked&quot; = &quot;smoothed&quot;. They agreed to remove my bid.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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