Tooling - thoughts

[DonnaML]

47 minutes ago, Heliodromus said:

Hmm... I would think the opposite - that silver and gold can much more easily be worked on without detection since there is no patina to consider.

How about this one, for example !

So why does nobody ever seem to complain about tooled denarii? Because they're harder to detect?

[Heliodromus]

I don't know - could also be that the opportunity/temptation doesn't present itself in the same way. A worn coin could always be tooled to add lost details, but it seems with bronzes (& inapplicable to silver) that it's often coins with thick patina being tooled - people pushing the boundary between aggressive cleaning and sharping up details.

Edited December 20, 2023 by Heliodromus

[Greekcoin21]

I collect Greek Bronze and RPC coins tooling is a problem, especially on large coins most have been smoothed all one can do is compare photos 

[Salomons Cat]

1 hour ago, Heliodromus said:

Hmm... I would think the opposite - that silver and gold can much more easily be worked on without detection since there is no patina to consider.

How about this one, for example !

To say that this coin is more than highly suspicious would be an understatement 😄
Bubbles, soapy features and the mouth appears more worn than the hair. To me it looks more like a forgery than tooled.

45 minutes ago, DonnaML said:

So why does nobody ever seem to complain about tooled denarii? Because they're harder to detect?

Nowadays, it's not difficult to find a die match for most denarii online. So identification cannot be the problem. 
Apparently, tooling silver coins is more difficult. I read somewhere that it usually turns into a mess. But I don't know why, either...

[DonnaML]

2 hours ago, Salomons Cat said:

To say that this coin is more than highly suspicious would be an understatement 😄
Bubbles, soapy features and the mouth appears more worn than the hair. To me it looks more like a forgery than tooled.

Nowadays, it's not difficult to find a die match for most denarii online. So identification cannot be the problem. 
Apparently, tooling silver coins is more difficult. I read somewhere that it usually turns into a mess. But I don't know why, either...

That's what I had always heard as well.

[Heliodromus]

3 hours ago, Salomons Cat said:

To say that this coin is more than highly suspicious would be an understatement 😄
Bubbles, soapy features and the mouth appears more worn than the hair. To me it looks more like a forgery than tooled.

FWIW this before/after pairing was reported by Lars Ramskold who's quite expert in fake forensics, so I'd have to assume it's genuine.

In any case, the issue isn't whether the original (broken) coin is genuine - it's the quality of work done to "restore" it.

[Salomons Cat]

35 minutes ago, Heliodromus said:

FWIW this before/after pairing was reported by Lars Ramskold who's quite expert in fake forensics, so I'd have to assume it's genuine.

In any case, the issue isn't whether the original (broken) coin is genuine - it's the quality of work done to "restore" it.

Maybe the coin at the left is genuine. Not easy to judge because the image is not sharp. If it is crytallized, brittle and broken, then it must indeed genuine. 
But the version at the right seems to have many features of a forgery and I cannot spot any of the hallmarks of a genuine ancient silver coin (e.g., flow lines, cracks, sharp features, ...). As I said: It has soapy features, uneven wear and even the pores look quite round, like casting bubbles. If a genuine ancient coins somehow ended up looking like that, then it is a very unlucky coin that imitates a forgery really well.

[Heliodromus]

12 minutes ago, Salomons Cat said:

But the version at the right

This is the exact same coin in both pictures. Note for example the gouge on the cheek still visible in the "repaired" photo.

 

[Salomons Cat]

2 hours ago, Heliodromus said:

This is the exact same coin in both pictures. Note for example the gouge on the cheek still visible in the "repaired" photo.

 

I don’t know what happened to the coin at the right. It is not exactly the same coin as the one at the left because some of the holes are filled, the cut across the cheek looks like it has been repaired and clearly, it is more “complete” than the coin at the left. It could be a cast from the coin at the left. Or something else.

My point is: From my point of view, these photos do not support the claim that tooling on ancient silver coins is easy to do.
I don’t know for sure if the coin at the right is a cast fake. For me, it looks like that.

But tooling is something different. I understand tooling as a kind of “re-engraving” that interferes with the metallic part of the coin.

I would say:
Removing of deposits = cleaning

Removing deposits along with some parts of the original surface = smoothing

Re-engraving in the misguided effort to improve the appearance of a coin = tooling

I have seen only very few ancient silver coins that have been tooled. It would be interesting to know why tooling (or „re-engraving“) is apparently more difficult to do on silver coins than on bronze/orichalcum.

[Cinco71]

It's interesting that in the most recent edition of Aaron Berk's Ancient Coin Podcast, he weighs in a bit on the topic of smoothing and tooling (starting at about 17:50 into the episode).  He makes the statement that "most bronze coins have some kind of smoothing in them somewhere."  He goes on to suggest that NGC change their standards for labeling the smoothing and tooling of slabbed coins, especially when it comes to smoothing in the fields which he feels is not a big deal.

I think his most interesting suggestion is that NGC not slab tooled coins at all, and as far as smoothing goes, they should just ding the surface score on the label.  For those of you who don't believe in slabbing at all, then this might not matter to you, but to those who purchase coins in slabs, this would be a significant change if adopted.

 

Edited December 21, 2023 by Cinco71

[lordmarcovan]

I went against my usual principles and bought a smoothed coin this year, not long ago.  And spent a pretty penny on it, too.  Does the smoothing look egregious to any of you?  I confess I wouldn't have known anything about it but for the NGC "lt smoothing" notation on the label.  Interestingly, they also gave it their "star" rating, which they award to coins with superior eye appeal.  It is the only NGC "star" coin I have, in fact.

(Like most if not all of you, I think would avoid a tooled coin if I knew about the tooling.)

 

 

Edited December 21, 2023 by lordmarcovan

[DonnaML]

22 minutes ago, lordmarcovan said:

I went against my usual principles and bought a smoothed coin this year, not long ago.  And spent a pretty penny on it, too.  Does the smoothing look egregious to any of you?  I confess I wouldn't have known anything about it but for the NGC "lt smoothing" notation on the label.  Interestingly, they also gave it their "star" rating, which they award to coins with superior eye appeal.  It is the only NGC "star" coin I have, in fact.

(Like most if not all of you, I think would avoid a tooled coin if I knew about the tooling.)

 

 

I think it looks fantastic, and that kind of smoothing doesn't really bother me at all. I do draw the line at tooling, which I see as fundamentally different in kind.

[AussieCollector]

On 12/21/2023 at 1:49 AM, Heliodromus said:

Well, I suppose one could say that a hobo nickel is still a genuine nickel.

Yes, it is a defaced nickel. How could it not be?

[Heliodromus]

2 hours ago, AussieCollector said:

Yes, it is a defaced nickel. How could it not be?

Even if none of the original design is left? So it's the age of the flan that makes it "genuine" ?

I suppose it's a matter of degree and definition.

 

[panzerman]

Late to the game....

I have one "tooled" coin my collection/ and I do not see a problem.

Coin in question:

Papal States

AV Ducato ND Roma Mint

Pope Nicholas V

NGC slab / UNC/ DETAILS (tooling/ clipped)

So someone clipped it (common practice hammered gold coin 1400-1500) This does not bother me. Stacks even commented that they saw no evidence of clipping.

[AussieCollector]

On 12/29/2023 at 1:49 AM, Heliodromus said:

Even if none of the original design is left? So it's the age of the flan that makes it "genuine" ?

I suppose it's a matter of degree and definition.

 

Not the age of the flan, but the fact it was minted as a nickel on a specific year. It is a genuinely defaced nickel of a certain year.

In my view, you would need to melt it down and re-hammer for it to not be genuine anymore. 

[John Conduitt]

1 hour ago, AussieCollector said:

Not the age of the flan, but the fact it was minted as a nickel on a specific year. It is a genuinely defaced nickel of a certain year.

In my view, you would need to melt it down and re-hammer for it to not be genuine anymore. 

It is a different thing, though, with it's own appeal. A hobo nickel isn't trying to be an original nickel. It's graffiti rather than tooling because it's part of the history of the coin, not an attempt to recreate it.

This is a George III cartwheel penny. But no-one is going to buy it as a George III cartwheel penny. You wouldn't expect it to be described as a 'tooled penny'.

Convict Token on a George III Cartwheel Penny

Soho mint (penny). Bronze, 36mm, 25g. “WHEN THIS YOU SEE REMEMBER ME DEAR MOTHER ·1827·”. “C.P To R.P” within a pierced love heart, a rose extends out below a Tudor King’s Crown, thistle and shamrock either side. (KM 618). Possibly Catherine Parmenter b. 1808 Kent, 5’2”, fair, freckled, pockpitted, light brown hair, hazel and grey eyes, stoutish, spinster and a servant. Tried at the Old Bailey for Highway Robbery with Sarah Jarvis and William Sturdy in September 1826. Assaulted Aloysius Last in Marylebone and took his watch, value 20s. Death sentence commuted to life transportation. Departed on the Princess Charlotte, March 1827 to New South Wales.

[Heliodromus]

1 hour ago, AussieCollector said:

In my view, you would need to melt it down and re-hammer for it to not be genuine anymore. 

The trouble with this type of definition is that you have some modern fakes overstruck on common ancients (e.g. Becker would sometimes do this), so it becomes meaningless to insist that it's still a genuine ancient coin.

At some point it becomes necessary to distinguish between the flan and the coin. The flan may be ancient, but if it was struck with modern fake dies, then the resulting coin is fake in the eyes of most people.

The same goes for the hobo nickel - if nothing is left of the nickel other than the metal it was made out of, then all you are left with is a moden token carved on a piece of recycled metal.

 

[Heliodromus]

37 minutes ago, John Conduitt said:

It is a different thing, though, with it's own appeal.

Yes, although there's a difference between the original hobo nickels which did retain much of the original design (e.g. turn the bust into a skull or dude with a hat, and do have some appeal, and the modern ones where the design has been 100% erased and the coin is now just a blank canvas for something entirely unrelated.

 

[AussieCollector]

On 12/31/2023 at 12:02 PM, Heliodromus said:

The trouble with this type of definition is that you have some modern fakes overstruck on common ancients (e.g. Becker would sometimes do this), so it becomes meaningless to insist that it's still a genuine ancient coin.

At some point it becomes necessary to distinguish between the flan and the coin. The flan may be ancient, but if it was struck with modern fake dies, then the resulting coin is fake in the eyes of most people.

The same goes for the hobo nickel - if nothing is left of the nickel other than the metal it was made out of, then all you are left with is a moden token carved on a piece of recycled metal.

 

So in the case of a modern fake die (B) overstruck on an original ancient flan (A), the original coin (A) is in fact still a genuine coin - albeit defaced with a modern fake (B) die.

It is a fake B, but it is not a fake A - just a defaced A.

Again, I come back to it - any other definition is just subjective. 

[Heliodromus]

3 hours ago, AussieCollector said:

So in the case of a modern fake die (B) overstruck on an original ancient flan (A), the original coin (A) is in fact still a genuine coin - albeit defaced with a modern fake (B) die.

No - you're just arbitrarily redefining well defined terms to suit your own argument.

A flan and a coin are two different things.

Defacing is not the same as replacing.

If I took paint remover to the Mona Lisa, removed all the paint from the canvas, and spray painted a cartoon dog onto it, the resulting item is not:

a) The Mona Lisa (which is/was a painting, not a blank canvas), or

b) A genuine work by Leonardo da Vinvi, or

c) A defaced Mona Lisa

It is exactly what it is - a modern painting, painted on an old canvas.

 

 

[Marsyas Mike]

An interesting discussion for sure.  I just got a scarce sestertius of Lucius Verus from an eBay lot and I thought I was looking at two reverse die-matches - but nope, it was only one.  Same coin, one of them had a bunch of green removed; not sure it qualifies as "tooling" or "cleaning" but I thought it might pertain to this discussion.  

Here's mine (on top) with two others (CNG auctions the same coin):

 

The auctions for the cleaned/uncleaned coin are here - there must be a mistake with the weights - 21.11 grams before the green was removed then 27.81 grams after the cleaning!  I thought cleaning made them lighter: 

https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=312637

https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=238690

For what it's worth, I preferred the pre-cleaning green version (it doesn't appear to be BD - if it is BD, then cleaning is a good thing, of course).  I'm also guessing both versions had some reverse smoothing as well.  

For those wondering, the coin in question is a Lucius Verus sestertius (cuirassed bust) RIC III Marcus Aurelius 1430; Cohen RSC 191; Banti 121.  That's Parthia sitting on shields feeling sad.  This seems to be a scarce coin - other than the CNG example above, I found one other, an obverse die-match to mine:

Also a CNG auction:  https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=4112935

 

 

 

 

 

[AussieCollector]

On 1/2/2024 at 1:49 AM, Heliodromus said:

No - you're just arbitrarily redefining well defined terms to suit your own argument.

A flan and a coin are two different things.

Defacing is not the same as replacing.

If I took paint remover to the Mona Lisa, removed all the paint from the canvas, and spray painted a cartoon dog onto it, the resulting item is not:

a) The Mona Lisa (which is/was a painting, not a blank canvas), or

b) A genuine work by Leonardo da Vinvi, or

c) A defaced Mona Lisa

It is exactly what it is - a modern painting, painted on an old canvas.

 

 

I disagree with you, but cannot be bothered arguing anymore.

It matters little anyway. See it as you wish to, and I will do the same.

Edit:

Actually, I have decided to expand on my thinking on this so you can better understand my position.

Let's step this through. Imagine you have one unintentional scratch on a coin. Is it still a genuine coin? Yes, of course. But what if that exact same scratch is intentional? Is it still genuine? Yes, but we call it graffiti. Now, what if there are hundreds of unintentional scratches? Is the coin still genuine? Yes, but we'd give it an F grade or worse. What if those exact same hundreds of scratches are intentional? Does that make a difference? Exact same damage on the coin, but with a different intent. You'd say it probably doesn't make a difference to whether the coin is genuine, right? But we've just changed thr majority of the surface of the coin, with intent.

And then we get to intentional smoothing. Why is that different to intentional scratches? Because now the intent is to improve the look of the coin. Is the coin still genuine? It was intentional. Most would still say yes.

But then we intentionally carve into the coin, improve designs etc.... say around 20% of the surface. Is it still genuine then? I believe most would still say yes, but it is tooled.

But then we change 50% of the surface? What then? Is this suddenly where we draw the line, and say it's a fake?

Or at 51%? Or 49%? Or do we have to go up to 90%? What percentage of the original surface is required for it to still be genuine? And why is this different to intentional scratches that also changed the majority of the surface?

Because the aim was to improve the surface? Ridiculous thinking. It's all subjective.

Or do you have to make it look like a different coin for it to be a fake? How faithful, or not, do you have to be to the original design to make it a fake?

What arbitrary line shall we draw? Because it is an arbitrary line that has to be drawn with this kind of thinking.

The only objective line that can be drawn is that it is still a genuine coin, with a surface that has been changed (whatever term you might use there).

Edited January 3 by AussieCollector

[John Conduitt]

28 minutes ago, AussieCollector said:

I disagree with you, but cannot be bothered arguing anymore.

It matters little anyway. See it as you wish to, and I will do the same.

Edit:

Actually, I have decided to expand on my thinking on this so you can better understand my position.

Let's step this through. Imagine you have one unintentional scratch on a coin. Is it still a genuine coin? Yes, of course. But what if that exact same scratch is intentional? Is it still genuine? Yes, but we call it graffiti. Now, what if there are hundreds of unintentional scratches? Is the coin still genuine? Yes, but we'd give it an F grade or worse. What if those exact same hundreds of scratches are intentional? Does that make a difference? Exact same damage on the coin, but with a different intent. You'd say it probably doesn't make a difference to whether the coin is genuine, right? But we're starting to get onto shaky ground by your definition (or by some people's definitions).

And then we get to intentional smoothing. Why is that different to intentional scratches? Because now the intent is to improve the look of the coin. Is the coin still genuine? It was intentional. Most would still say yes.

But then we intentionally carve into the coin, improve designs etc.... say around 20% of the surface. Is it still genuine then? I believe most would still say yes, but it is tooled.

But then we change 50% of the surface? What then? Is this suddenly where we draw the line, and say it's a fake?

Or at 51%? Or 49%? Or do we have to go up to 90%? What percentage of the original surface is required for it to still be genuine? Ridiculous thinking. It's all subjective.

Or do you have to make it look like a different coin for it to be a fake? How faithful, or not, do you have to be to the original design to make it a fake?

What arbitrary line shall we draw? Because it is an arbitrary line that has to be drawn with this kind of thinking.

The only objective line that can be drawn is that it is still a genuine coin, with a surface that has been changed (whatever term you might use there).

Well. You are both right but only because you are dancing on the heads of different pins.

I don't imagine the person who paid CHF 13,000 + fees for this thought it was entirely 'genuine'. Presumably, they believed it was a tooled 'genuine' example. Whether that is fake or not isn't really what's being debated - it would be a ruined genuine coin. It would be the only example outside museums and is only a little light at 4.37g (4.5g was the standard) and so worth CHF 13,000 + fees.

However, I'm not sure any of the design is genuine. It looks to me as if the design is entirely recreated, copied from an original and not very accurately at that. Maybe the 'host' coin wasn't of Magnus Maximus. Or even a solidus. It was carved on a genuine something, so you will call it genuine. But it's not a genuine coin of Magnus Maximus from Augusta. It's a fake if you're going to call it a coin of Magnus Maximus from Augusta, which you would, because that's what it says on the coin.



The difference between your viewpoints is simply what is being described as fake or genuine. I would say that if you tool a coin and do not say that it is tooled, that is 'fake'. It is a lie. It is a forgery because it is pretending to be a better coin than it is. But it is still a genuine tooled coin if described correctly. And yes, smoothing would come into this if it isn't declared. There may be an accepted level of messing about with an ancient coin - cleaning the crud off it, smoothing a little etc - that doesn't need to be declared, but this thread is about how far that goes before it becomes 'fake'.

If you tool a coin so much that you can't tell what it used to be and don't say so, that is also 'fake'. But it is a genuine coin that has been recreated as something else. A hobo nickel isn't fake because it is described correctly. It's a nickel someone defaced with a new face.

So it's fakeness depends on the truth of the description given to it, and how much it is presented as something it isn't. Not the coin itself.

Take this coin. It's a Spanish 8 reales, right? Of course it is. Matthew Boulton just took it and stamped George III's face on it. But it's still a genuine 8 reales. Isn't it? It's certainly not a fake. No-one has said it's an 8 reales and no-one would believe it's an 8 reales, so it's not a fake. Is it a dollar? Well, it was an 8 reales, so if it's a dollar, is it a fake dollar?

Spanish 8 Reales

Soho Mint, Birmingham. Silver, 41mm, 27g.

I can say it's a genuine George III dollar made from a genuine Spanish 8 reales. Despite it's transformation, none of that is fake, because there's no deception.

[Heliodromus]

1 hour ago, AussieCollector said:

What arbitrary line shall we draw? Because it is an arbitrary line that has to be drawn with this kind of thinking.

Perhaps, but nonetheless there is a spectrum. At one end you have original/untooled coins, and at the other end you have the Becker fake struck over an ancient coin. One is genuine, one is fake.

Somewhere between these extremes you have a whole range of tooling from sharpened details to the occasional grotesque examples where there is basically nothing of the original engravers work left (other than the outlines of a design that have been followed). I personally would not describe the latter as a "genuine" coin.

Take as a case study the Constantine solidus I posted earlier in this thread - in addition to all the damage repair, there's also an obliterated face that has been replaced on the reverse, and a wreath tie inadvertently truncated behind the obverse neck (the sort of thing that can change a coin's attribution). The end result is a coin that is no longer 100% the work of the original engraver - it's part modern. It's not fake, but it's not 100% original either. If the new wreath tie had changed the attribution then it certainly wouldn't be a "genuine" example of THAT type.

That said, perhaps "genuine" is best reserved for use as the opposite of "fake", and tooled coins described in terms of what specific work/modifications have been made. The seller of the Constantine solidus, a reputable auction house, chose just to call it "professionally restored".