For the past few months, I have been on a binge buying Chinese coins from the Southern Song dynasty, basically cornering the western market. The Southern Song Dynasty offers an extremely rich numismatic legacy consisting of many reign titles, calligraphy styles, denominations, metallic compositions, mint marks, and reign years. One of my specializations in this area is iron 2 cash, which are not only difficult to find in the west in general, but extremely difficult to find nice due to the nature of iron and 800 years of environmental effects. Southern Song iron coinage is often rusted, and, if severe, will permanently obscure the inscription on the coins, no matter how much of the rusty crust is removed. It is also common for one side (usually the reverse) to be softer than the other. These issues combined mean that very few coins have the clarity and sharpness desired by collectors. To fill the void, coin doctors, and sometimes the grading services, will “enhance” the iron coins to make them appear a higher grade. Here are a few examples of the tooling encountered on these coins. It ranges from a few strokes on one character being sharpened (generally seen as okay) to nothing original being left on the coin (definitely not okay). This first coin is a Chun Xi Yuan Bao iron 2 cash made at the Daye mint, signified by the character “Ye” on the top reverse. I encountered this coin on eBay, and it is the inspiration for this post (no, I did not buy it; someone else unfortunately did). The field have been completely carved out and smoothed to deepen the relief of the characters and rim, the interiors of the characters have been dug out to reveal strokes that have been obscured by wear and/or rust, and then the entire coin has been smoothed and repatinated to obscure the extreme makeover. Things to look for to spot tooling are tool marks around and in the characters, incorrect shaping of the characters, and rounded interior spaces in the characters. Here is one in my inventory which has not been touched up at all. This next coin is another Chun Xi Yuan Bao, this time cast at the Shu Prefecture mint in Tongan, represented by the reverse inscription “Shu Tong” (read top to bottom). The obverse is a nice VF with very little enhancement, which is the only reason it is in my collection. The reverse was extremely weak, so it required extreme tooling to bring out the characters. It was an amateur job, with the top character being heavily carved out because there was very little to go off of originally. The bottom character (“Tong”) must have been clearer, since it is only sharpened rather than created. (Compare the form of the obverse characters to the first coin to see how overly destroyed the first coin is.) Here is another example from my collection which has a more worn obverse and a much sharper reverse. Fortunately, this coin has not been tooled whatsoever. Lastly, this coin is a sad story. I bought it certified by a Chinese grading company (Bao Cui). I try to look for signs of tooling before making a purchase because it significantly affects the desirability of the coin in my eyes. There was a huge hoard of Southern Song iron discovered recently (about 2 tons worth), and the scarcer 3 and 5 cash pieces hoard was sent to Bao Cui for grading. From what I have been told, Bao Cui was asked to tool most of the coins since the hoard condition wasn’t great. The processing wasn’t mentioned on the slabs, and the enhanced sharpness was actually rewarded with a higher grade. When I received this coin in hand, a close look immediately revealed extensive tooling on the obverse. The characters had moats around them that were twice as deep as the original character relief. The reverse was also sharpened, but I was aware of them when I ordered it. The toolmarks were covered up using a yellowish faux rust. The yellow color is an indication that a fake patina has been applied, and halos around the characters means that there was extensive carving performed to sharpen the characters. The sad part? It was a rather nice piece before it was tooled. It was a perfectly good coin before it was ruined. If the tooling problem wasn’t enough, there are also a multitude of fake iron pieces that are fooling the experts. If you decide to venture into Southern Song iron coinage, let this serve as a warning to tread with extreme caution or avoiding the area altogether. I am only buying pieces provananced to older collections or coming directly from documented hoards. Fortunately, I was able to buy two intact collections of these coins and one partial collection through a longtime dealer, so I was able to complete a major portion of my collection with quality pieces and no worries about authenticity. When I get the time to do a proper write up, I will share my collection.
It's pretty insane that the grading co would tool and then not indicate thus. Sort of like if a coin was sent to NCS who tooled and/or whizzed a coin, then got straight-graded by NGC. Despicable
Here’s an even worse example, which I wouldn’t have believed possible. The reverse character is created. I wouldn’t pay any premium for the mintmark because there is little to indicate that it wasn’t artificially contrived.
Tooling and repatination is also a problem with certain Middle-Eastern sellers offering Levantine coins. They don't see it as a problem - in fact, doctoring is considered de rigueur. Like you, I've been willing to accept discrete and tasteful amounts of it, in order to obtain coins that were otherwise not available, particularly coins for my collection of Nabataeans. But if it's egregious, it's unacceptable. That eBay coin is positively awful.
