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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;dougsmit, post: 4022347, member: 19463&quot;]Unfortunately the borders between natural, selectively cleaned, smoothed and tooled are not digital steps but gradual, analog questions of degree.&nbsp; Some of us disagree on the point at which the action becomes offensive.&nbsp; I tend to avoid anything I see easily and accept that which I cannot see but that brings up the question whether something done so well that it is not detected by 99% of us is acceptable or just as bad as an amateur effort. My current feeling allows me to accept smoothing but disdain tooling using my, probably faulty, definitions of those terms.&nbsp; I see the market changing to accept more alterations as more people who know less are spending more.&nbsp; In all honesty, I do not see how we can know what will be the situation in another few decades.&nbsp; Oil paintings and statues are expected to be restored, repaired, retouched in ways that would ruin a coin to most of us today.&nbsp; When those who made the rules we now accept are gone, will the coins maintain their &#039;high road&#039; standards?&nbsp; I won&#039;t be here to know.&nbsp; Some of you will and it will bother you just as all those well scrubbed denarii we see today bother those who prefer &#039;old collection&#039; toning.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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