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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;IdesOfMarch01, post: 2876954, member: 39084&quot;]I think you misunderstand my point, which was intended to be very simple: removing anything (dirt, encrustation, some of the original metal, etc.) from the surface of a coin makes the surface literally smoother.&nbsp; Period.&nbsp; Therefore cleaning a coin is also smoothing the coin&#039;s surface, in the most literal sense of the word &quot;smoothing.&quot;&nbsp; It&#039;s irrelevant whether the removal was done chemically or using a dentist&#039;s pick or some other tool. </p><p><br /></p><p>Now, nobody is going to define removing purely dirt or encrustations from a coin&#039;s surface as &quot;smoothing&quot; since that&#039;s not a reasonable definition of the word.&nbsp; But even though I&#039;ve never cleaned an ancient coin, I assume that it&#039;s possible to unintentionally remove some of the coin&#039;s surface when trying to clean off a particularly stubborn encrustation.&nbsp; Is this smoothing?&nbsp; Probably, depending on your definition of the word.&nbsp; Is it acceptable smoothing?&nbsp; I guess that depends on what you find acceptable in the coins you acquire.</p><p><br /></p><p>I also have to assume that sometimes it&#039;s not possible to differentiate between encrustations and the coin&#039;s original surface when cleaning a coin.&nbsp; Maybe the coin has a lot of raised bumps that appear to be encrustations and the individual decides to remove them during the cleaning process.&nbsp; If the bumps were really encrustations and not original metal, then the coin hasn&#039;t been smoothed; but if the bumps were part of the coin&#039;s original surface and made during the striking process, then the coin has been smoothed.&nbsp; Is it possible to tell the difference?&nbsp; If so, how?</p><p><br /></p><p>My conclusion is that any judgement of whether a coin has been just cleaned, smoothed, or overly smoothed will have a large subjective component to that judgement.&nbsp; So for my collecting purposes, unless a coin has been overly smoothed to the point of detracting from that coin&#039;s original state, I&#039;m comfortable with the probability that many of the bronzes I own may have areas of smoothing.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Personally, I would define this as tooling, but I understand the position that tooling only involves eliminating material from the coin but not adding to it.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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