Tooling on ancient silver coins

I’m particularly sensitive to “improved” coins because two of the first three ancient coins I purchased some 40 years ago were tooled. The reality is that tooling is often the only way to make some ancients marketable. Smoothing is extremely common, especially with ancient bronzes which are more susceptible to corrosion and more easily “improved” by smoothing. It is so common that even reputable dealers will not mention it in their listings unless it is blatantly obvious.


It is much more difficult to hide tooling on silver coins because of the brighter unpatenated surfaces, but often, part of the deceptive process for silver coins that have been tooled is to artificially darken them so that the tooling marks are less noticeable.


Last summer at a coin show, I purchased what I believed was a very high grade beautifully toned Roman Republican denarius. It was housed in a Kointain capsule inside of a flip. I NEVER buy coins at shows or shops without examining the raw coins, but this time I failed this basic personal rule and pulled the trigger in excitement. At home, I put the coin in better light without the containers, and found that it had been extensively tooled throughout the fields and some of the higher areas. Some would call these “cleaning marks”, but to me it is tooling.


Returning to the show, the dealer was happy to refund my money. Since this experience, I have learned that darkening of silver coins is a common practice in processing hoards in preparation for marketing. When silver coins that cannot be cleaned without tooling are found in the hoard, they are often darkened to hide the issues.

 

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To me, "tooling" means artificially strengthening the devices, so I would definitely call these cleaning scratches. Nevertheless, I agree that they should be mentioned in any pre-sale description of the coin.

Sometimes toning can be so dark and thick–almost like patina–that it could easily hide such scratches, or even tooling.

 

That's how I see it as well.

 

Severus and Bing, You are both probably in the majority with your interpretation of the term "tooling". I stand corrected in the terminology; however, I personally regard cleaning marks and smoothing as equally deceptive when it isn't noted in the description of the coin in an online or printed sale. Coins offered at a coin show are a little different because of how they are presented, and in my case, it was totally my own fault for not being observant.

 

I agree with the others; this is not "tooling" as far as the common meaning of the term with regards to ancient coins. Those scratches were not done to enhance the look of the coin, therefore it is not tooling. As for whether such marks would typically make a coin worth significantly less money, without seeing photos of the entire coin it's hard to say. Of course all that really matters is whether you are happy with the coin and it sounds like you weren't.

 

Thanks for posting your question @Fugio1 ! I think of tooling as sculpting the metal or carving it to produce details that were never there. I'm not an expert but I would define what you had on the silver coin that you purchased as—poorly smoothed surfaces.

 

Exactly. Thus the motivation for the artificial toning.

 

You did not post the picture of the whole coin but to my eye this looks like a natural toning rather than artificial darkening. As far as the scratches on the coin, the majority of ancient silver has been cleaned with some kind of brush which always leaves marks. Sometimes you can see them with a naked eye sometimes you need a microscope. Personally, such cleaning marks in fields do not bother me much.

 

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John

 

I agree with @Meander. This coin isn't tooled or smoothed, just some light cleaning scratches. If you've ever tried cleaning silver mechanically, you would realize just how easy it is to make marks like that, it takes just the slightest pressure. Silver is always best cleaned chemically but the temptation is there to try to speed up the process.

The toning on that coin is not created to hide those scratches and I'm not aware of any "thick" toning on coins that can be applied unless you're talking about glued on sand. Your picture takes up half my 18" monitor, slightly bigger than in hand , I don't think there was anything underhanded going on here at all.

 

I did not post the whole picture because I do not own the coin, and I don't want to deride someone else's coin. It appears though that no-one agrees with me on this (that's ok, not the first time) and that this level of manipulation is an ok thing. Here is the whole coin:


The toning is quite beautiful, but in my opinion, not natural.

 

I also think those are cleaning scratches. They are a bit excessive and would probably keep me from buying the coin as well. Ancient collectors use the the term tooling to describe a coin that was engraved to add or enhance details and involves the removal of metal. I don't suspect the coin was toned to try and hide the scratches. Probably from being stored in an envelope with sulfur in it. I am not an expert.

 

Unless by "not natural" you mean painted on, I have some thoughts on this.

There are many interesting and lively threads on CoinTalk regarding toning-- not only on the Ancients board but also on the US board.

I live in a high humidity warm environment, with salt air, sporadic volcanic ash, and Saharan dust. If I leave a silver coin or jewelry uncovered on my table for very long it will tone, sometimes quite attractively and definitely much faster than it would tone in, say, Arizona. If I purposefully leave a coin on my table, have I artificially toned it? What if I leave a coin out by accident? If I buy an wood coin cabinet that off-gasses substances that accelerate toning of silver, have I artificially toned the coins stored within? Does it matter if I bought the cabinet intentionally to speed up the toning? What if I did it not knowing that it would tone the coins?

I'm not saying this to be antagonistic but to point out that "artificial" toning isn't as clear cut as some might think. All silver will tone. The speed varies by many factors. People knowingly and unknowingly do things which speed up that process.

Personally-- and I may be in the minority here-- I'm not overly concerned about how long it took for a particular coin to acquire its toning. I also don't expect my coins with lovely toning to have that same lovely toning in ten years. If I like a coin's current look I try to store it in a way that slows the change, but I view tone as an ephemeral thing.

 

Much of the concern in the modern collecting regarding toning is really market acceptability. Doesn't matter if you can prove it accidental or intentional, it's about whatever the market/third party graders deem acceptable. I don't think your captured the toning well in the photo, but I suspect it looks very nice.

This photo doesn't do enough justice to the toning on this coin but it's really nice.

 

I tend not to use the term patina for silver which just tones but reserve patina for the heavier surface colors of bronzes (green and others). Bronzes will also tone if not protected by a patina and that toning can be hastened chemically.
This dupondius of Nero has a green patina:


This one has toned down from the shiny yellow brass it once was but I do not call it a patina ('river' or other). Both coins started the same color. I expect the tone of the second to darken in the next few centuries while the patina of the first should change less due to the protective layer of the patina. Will I be right? Ask me again in 500 years.


Below are two denarii of Hadrian. With no further human intervention, I would expect them to be close to the same tone by that time. I have a few coins that are a bit darker now than they were 50 years ago but my thoughts about 500 years are purely speculative. Could we make that 500 years be 500 days? Possibly. Should we?


It all of a sudden struck me that if TIF is guilty of a toning infraction for leaving a coin out in bad conditions, in bad envelopes or not moving to Arizona then she is also a tone-felon by interfering with the natural order of things by storing a coin in a way that slows progressive darkening and remaining in humidity heaven. If everything is bad then nothing is bad so we must accept her plea of innocence by reason of the ephemeral nature of science.

 

I agree with @TIF about the toning issue. A while back I posted before and after shots of a coin I had cleaned. One member here replied "Its ruined", telling me I had removed the toning. In fact the coin was not toned at all, it was dirty. All I did was remove the surface dirt from the coin. This was confirmed by members on here whom I trust and who also knew what method I had used. There are all kinds of opinions on issues like this, you are not going to make anyone else happy.

 

You're right. I mis-typed. The word "tone" or "toning" should have been used throughout that post. I started to go into a similar discussion for bronze patinas but deleted it... my brain was still on bronze when I wrote the last paragraph

 

Nope...TIF is a tone-felon and must properly store her coins in NCG slabs, inside of approved slabs containers, and then moved to a re-education center in Arizona.

 

Haha!