Aureus Repair?

[black-prophet]

I was doing my usual poking around and stumbled upon this beautiful Aureus of Ant.Pius I always cross check these types of coins in coin archives out of curiosity and lo and behold this coin was unsold at a Lanz auction Jan.5th of this year.That in and of itself is not so interesting,but upon further review I noticed a few areas of the coin that seemed improved.I don't mean this to be an accusation of any kind, but I am just kind of curious if a more experienced eye can spot something I missed or maybe it's just a trick of the lighting and photography.1st pic is from Lanz Auction,2nd pic is from dealer and in the 3rd pic I put squares around the areas I suspect of improvement.There is a similiar thread in the Classical Numismatic section on a coin here https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=38696.0  although this seems a less egregious.Strangely I like the Lanz coin better.

[black-prophet]

oops 2nd and 3rd picture are switched.

[areich]

That's an idiotic thing to do. People who can't stand to see a flan crack should stay away from ancient coins
and buy gold bars or whatever.

[*Alex]

I don't think it is a flan crack so much as a mark or dent on the flan. I suspect that the differences are due to the photography rather than anyone mucking about with the coin. The Lanz coin is lit from above (casting a shadow at the "flan crack"), whereas the other photograph is lit from the left side, casting different shadows and so not revealing the dent so much.

Alex.

[areich]

Alex, the little crack at 2-3h, I don't think its absence on the second picture can be explained by different lighting.
I'm not certain about the other things but this part is either photoshopped (which wouldn't make sense) or
it was repaired (i.e. tooled) on the actual coin. This is something I wouldn't expect from an honest coin dealer.

[areich]

Both the time interval (3 months) and the price difference (coin was unsold for $9,000 and is now listed for 7,995)
are pretty small for it to have been done by a middleman. Not impossible of course. 

[*Alex]

I cannot understand why anyone would want to repair such a minor flan crack, something which can only add to the perception of the coin's authenticity, not detract from it.

Alex.

[areich]

The dealer's inventory is aimed (in my opinion) at (closeted) collectors of modern coins,
he probably knows what his customers want. It's not as bad as tooling from an aesthetic and numismatic point of view
but from an ethical one it's little better.

[Numerianus]

I cannot understand why anyone would want to repair such a minor flan crack, something which can only add to the perception of the coin's authenticity, not detract from it.

Alex.

I cannot either! Could it be  a copy?

[areich]

There are people that want their coins to be perfect, even their ancient coins.
One of them apparently just bought the coin. The place where the crack used to be looks different from the rest of the surface, exactly like I would imagine such a repaired crack to look like.

[black-prophet]

One of them apparently just bought the coin. 

  Right out from under my nose no less! I Guess That 1st Aureus will just have to wait.

[Benjamin Aho]

I don't think it's repaired.

[areich]

The flan crack is there in the first picture and it's gone in the second, how else can that be explained,
except by a repair or by image editing? Image editing would make little sense since the buyer would surely send the coin back.

[*Alex]

I've blown the images up and I now agree with areich that the coin appears to have been "improved". 
The mark on the Lanz coin is not so much a flan crack as a cut mark and on the second image there appears to be signs of smoothing to obliterate it.

Alex.

[areich]

You're right, I used the word flan crack, but of course that is something very different.

[Numerianus]

Sorry to be back with my stupid idea. It is a great risk to demage the coin trying to "improve" it on  such  details
details (we see interventions at several points).  But it seems that it is quite reasonable operation to modify slightly the surface of the "negative"  making a cast... Can one distinguish on a photo whether the intervention was on the coin or on  the mold? 

I was even more surprised to see a perfect "face lifting" on the silver coin. There are absolutely no traces where the metal was added!
It is really a pity that Curtis has send it back without examining the specimen under microscope...