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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Insider, post: 2876760, member: 24314&quot;]kevin McGonigal, posted: &quot;Thanks. I started collecting coins in the late 1950&#039;s and until this year I had never even heard of the term before.&quot;</p><p><br /></p><p><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 102)"><i>I never heard of the word until after I joined CT.&nbsp; One of the ancient collectors wrote that the term was being used by auction companies.&nbsp; I have a large number of ancient coin auction catalogues going back to the 1970&#039;s.&nbsp; Unfortunately, I don&#039;t have the time or the need to try to determine when this crap started to help sell these crudely, altered coins.<b> I&#039;ve never seen a &quot;smoothed&quot; coin that is even REMOTELY deceptive!</b> I&#039;ll bet it was a US auction company that &quot;coined&quot; the term.&nbsp; Hopefully. someone with time on their hands will search for the &quot;earliest know use&quot; of the word.</i></span></p><p><br /></p><p>IdesOfMarch01, posted: &quot;It might be educational and informative if someone were able to post side-by-side examples of the following:</p><p><br /></p><p>1. An ancient bronze that has been cleaned but has verifiably not been smoothed.</p><p><span style="color: rgb(179, 0, 89)"><br /></span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(179, 0, 89)"><i>At one time, I worked for an ancient coin dealer.&nbsp; While I&#039;ll agree that the majority of ancient coins have been cleaned, I&#039;ve seen thousands and thousands of genuine ancients that have not been altered in any other way.&nbsp; Take a look at the next plastic bag of hoard coins.&nbsp; You may find a few coins that have not been tooled, or smoothed.</i>&nbsp; </span></p><p><br /></p><p>2. An ancient bronze that has been smoothed but not tooled.</p><p><br /></p><p><span style="color: rgb(179, 0, 89)"><i>This will be a problem for me as taking a &quot;tool&quot; and moving metal around the surface of a coin either to remove corrosion, strengthen details, add details, fill holes, make repairs, etc. is all a <b>FORM OF ALTERATION CALLED &quot;TOOLING&quot;</b> by the professional authenticators <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie26" alt=":bookworm:" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" /><img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie33" alt=":cigar:" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" /> I have known. </i></span></p><p><br /></p><p>3. An ancient bronze that has been tooled.</p><p><br /></p><p><i><span style="color: rgb(179, 0, 89)">We&#039;ve all seen these on Ebay and here.</span></i></p><p><br /></p><p>Personally, I&#039;ve never seen item #1, at least not a verifiable example of such a coin.&nbsp; Examples of #2 and #3 are plentiful.&quot;</p><p><br /></p><p><span style="color: rgb(89, 0, 179)"><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 102)"><i>This would definitely be a <b>great educational project</b>.&nbsp; Unfortunately, it seems we (me <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie30" alt=":bucktooth:" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" />, myself <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie5" alt=":confused:" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" />, and I<img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie98" alt=":wacky:" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" />) cannot even get an agreement on the definitions for characteristics on coins that we are throwing around in this thread.</i></span> </span></p><p><br /></p><p>medoraman, posted: &quot;I should have stated more clearly that some smoothing is simply a part of the [<b><i><span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0)">IMPROPER</span></i></b>] cleaning process, and it was not really intended to smooth [<b><span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0)">?</span></b>], just clean [<span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0)">By physically changing the coin&#039;s surface in a major and easily detectable way?</span>] . That is the mechanical scraping [<span style="color: #ff0000">tooling</span>] I was referring to. If it gets to the point they are using fine grade sandpaper, or filling in pits, that is intentional smoothing, (or doctoring), and is not NEARLY as acceptable. I may buy a coin that has been filled or intentionally polished in a pinch as I consider it not AS bad as tooling, but intentional polishing or filling should always be disclosed and is NOT just &quot;smoothing.&quot; So, to restate, almost all ancients have been inadvertently smoothed during [<i><span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0)"><b>IMPROPER</b></span></i>] cleaning. That is fine and generally acceptable. Intention actions like polishing or filling in pits is NOT just &quot;smoothing&quot;, but really coin doctoring and NOT generally acceptable by collectors as an original coin.&quot;</p><p><br /></p><p><i><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 102)">In addition to &quot;smoothing&quot; and &quot;tooling,&quot; my definition of cleaning is probably very different from that of the majority of ancient coin collectors/dealers so we&#039;ll just disagree - no big thing.&nbsp; I&#039;ve enjoyed the discussion.&nbsp; <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie8" alt=":D" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" /></span></i>[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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