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Author Topic: Badly Tooled Coins Here  (Read 160732 times)

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Offline Mark Z

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Re: Badly Tooled Coins Here
« Reply #275 on: November 04, 2011, 11:17:19 am »
These larger coins of Julian II seem to be a favorite target of tools...er, toolers, don't they?

You definitely need to watch out for the bullsh*t with these coins  ::)

mz

Offline Andrew McCabe

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Re: Badly Tooled Coins Here
« Reply #276 on: November 06, 2011, 02:23:08 am »
Republican As, currently on sale by a generally well respected vendor: it's so badly tooled that one can't even tell which era of the Roman Republic it comes from, but I'm very afraid, from the shape of the prow, that the seller has converted an extremely rare coin type, an As of C.Fonteius of 114BC which would ordinarily sell for hundreds even in worn condition, to an extremely common type (RRC 56) but tooled. Here is an As of C.FONT for comparison, note the prow shape:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ahala_rome/3417418900/lightbox/

Ghengis_Jon

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Re: Badly Tooled Coins Here
« Reply #277 on: November 06, 2011, 11:11:46 pm »
I hope it wasn't the seller who did the tooling.  That sort of treatment condemns the coin to an unwanted state at any price.

Ghengis_Jon

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Badly Tooled Coins Here
« Reply #278 on: November 24, 2011, 08:13:58 pm »
Not a hair out of place...

Ghengis_Jon

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Badly Tooled Coins Here
« Reply #279 on: December 06, 2011, 09:37:42 am »
This week's tooled entry:

Offline areich

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Re: Badly Tooled Coins Here
« Reply #280 on: December 06, 2011, 09:55:01 am »
To save time:

[LINK REMOVED BY ADMIN]

a high percentage of the Greek bronzes are tooled.
Andreas Reich

Offline Andrew McCabe

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Re: Badly Tooled Coins Here
« Reply #281 on: December 06, 2011, 10:25:38 am »
To save time:

http://www.sixbid.com/nav.php?p=viewsale&sid=500&cid=19571&s=b

a high percentage of the Greek bronzes are tooled.

This from the seller of many many of the tooled bronzes mentioned above in the last month or two. The linked example includes a particularly nasty tooled aes grave which might fetch a lot of money.

Offline Andrew McCabe

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Re: Badly Tooled Coins Here
« Reply #282 on: December 06, 2011, 10:56:51 am »
This week's tooled entry:


The prior assumption is that this is tooled, if only by association with the very many badly tooled coins coming from this seller currently.

However if I'd seen it elsewhere it would have passed me (as an expert in the series) at an initial glance because the prow design and lettering is correct in every detail for this issue, which compared with the really terrible tooled coins coming out of this seller at present does suggest the original coin was not bad to begin with. But note:
- where the "X" is on the side of the ship has not been tooled out
- where the all-seeing eye us on the side of the ship has not been tooled out
The 2011 engraver did not tool out these details presumably because he did not know what he was supposed to be tooling. Where you see the X and the eye shows the level of detail on the original. Much much less than on the tooled coin.

No bronzes, unless with untouched hard patina and clear strike effects and lustre, are now to be trusted from this source (which is of course the same source mentioned by andreas in his posting about tooled Greek bronzes). One source.

Offline areich

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Re: Badly Tooled Coins Here
« Reply #283 on: December 06, 2011, 11:00:19 am »
Andreas Reich

Offline Andrew McCabe

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Re: Badly Tooled Coins Here
« Reply #284 on: December 06, 2011, 11:13:24 am »
Maybe the source for the Lanz auction is the same that Peus had:

http://www.sixbid.com/nav.php?p=viewsale&sid=476&cid=18606&pg=2&search=&s=b

I'm sure it is.

The good thing is that knowledgeable people can tell these are tooled coins. Some of the Republican bronzes have been of such incredibly bad style that they amount to pure inventions.

The bad thing is that less knowledgeable people are hurt by such sales from a previously reputable name, specially where tooling is not specifically mentioned.

The worst thing is that some day these currently-incompetent toolers may acquire the skills to know what they are supposed to be making.

Offline areich

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Re: Badly Tooled Coins Here
« Reply #285 on: December 06, 2011, 11:37:58 am »
It's just hearsay but apparently whoever's responsible at Peus didn't know they were tooled. Of course it's just as bad in a different way since it is really obvious that they are tooled.
Andreas Reich

Offline mwilson603

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Re: Badly Tooled Coins Here
« Reply #286 on: December 06, 2011, 02:41:34 pm »
Just out of interest, and I know that we are not strictly speaking discussing fakes, but why hasn't Lanz been nominated for the NFSL yet?  Surely anything this badly tooled has got to qualify them?
regards
Mark

Offline Andrew McCabe

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Re: Badly Tooled Coins Here
« Reply #287 on: December 06, 2011, 04:23:48 pm »
Just out of interest, and I know that we are not strictly speaking discussing fakes, but why hasn't he been nominated for the NFSL yet?  Surely anything this badly tooled has got to qualify them?
regards
Mark

The dealer has a many-decade-long positive reputation and is an expert and respected numismatist who is known for selling good quality always-genuine coins and to reacting immediately and positively to any issue with a purchaser. It appears he is now selling a group of genuine but tooled coins. I think this is crazy but not malevolent. In the related ebay sales he has generally described the coins as tooled. There is also a grey area of coins which seem to be lightly tooled but not marked as such, and it appears the other dealer mentioned on this thread is selling similar pieces. Remember the criterion for NFSL is that there be unquestionable and deliberate deception. I'm really sure the dealer in this case has tried to point out where coins were tooled and may have overlooked others. No deliberate deception. In the case of the coin mentioned by Gengis Jon it requires a degree of expertise in the particular series to note the tooling so it is not blatent. None of us like these coins. We are all talking and complaining about them, and not just on Forvm. In my own posts I'm trying to highlight the issue. But I have the impression that the dealer is trying to be transparent by noting heavily tooled coins as tooled. Although I think he is completely mistaken to offer such coins for sale, allied with his long time positive reputation it would be inappropriate to regard him as notorious anything. Just mistaken. Sometimes judgment calls have to take into account longer term reputation issues beyond a few coins for sale.

Offline areich

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Re: Badly Tooled Coins Here
« Reply #288 on: December 06, 2011, 04:36:46 pm »
Like with so many other dealers it is an inherited reputation that is eroding quickly. Grades are exaggerated and manipulation played down, first on Ebay, later in the proper auctions. On Ebay it is perfectly normal to find coins there described as 'lightly smoothed' that are heavily tooled and that is intentional. Of course it would open a can of worms to nominate sellers like this for the NFSL. The best solution is to stay informed, keep your eyes open and don't blindly trust in a seller's 'reputation' or knowledge. More than a few relatively well-known internet-based sellers e.g. just copy coin descriptions and reference numbers from the web, like most new collectors do.
Andreas Reich

Offline Andrew McCabe

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Re: Badly Tooled Coins Here
« Reply #289 on: December 06, 2011, 04:43:11 pm »
Like with so many other dealers it is an inherited reputation that is eroding quickly. Grades are exaggerated and manipulation played down, first on Ebay, later in the proper auctions. On Ebay it is perfectly normal to find coins there described as 'lightly smoothed' that are heavily tooled and that is intentional. Of course it would open a can of worms to nominate sellers like this for the NFSL. The best solution is to stay informed, keep your eyes open and don't blindly trust in a seller's 'reputation' or knowledge. More than a few relatively well-known internet-based sellers e.g. just copy coin descriptions and reference numbers from the web, like most new collectors do.

Andreas I'm assuming that on the German language forums more is perhaps being said, given that the coins seem to be originating in Germany. Good comments above.

Offline areich

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Re: Badly Tooled Coins Here
« Reply #290 on: December 06, 2011, 05:19:22 pm »
It has been said that they come from Italy and noted how close they are in style to aitnacoins' Ebay offers. I haven't studied them closely enough to be sure, because to be honest, it would be a very unpleasant task to do so.

Unfortunately, even though some of the other big firms note tooling whenever they notice it, the fact that these tooled coins are sold at all, sometimes in large numbers, may make them more acceptable to collectors and thus lead to more tooled coins. I don't know what kind of collector these people are that see a tooled coin, no incredible rarity that would not be available untooled, and bid anyway, often hundreds or thousands of dollars.
Andreas Reich

Offline Dk0311USMC

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Re: Badly Tooled Coins Here
« Reply #291 on: December 06, 2011, 05:44:19 pm »
Sometimes there seems to be a fine line with tooling.   I like to clean various uncleaned coins and sometimes if the coin has a soft patina, its hard not to accidentally tool it a little bit when removing dirt from grooves, and around details.  I don't think really any of my coins become obviously tooled but some examples on here are very borderline, possibly as a result of someone trying to clean dirt out of details, and others intentionally recreating their own details.  I wouldn't try to resell a coin that I feel ended up with artificial details. 

On some coins for my own collection I will wax them, and I have found on some that I will selectively wax areas of the bust for example, or other details to help them pop to the eye a bit more.  But like I said that is just something I do for my own collection sometimes. If it doesn't work out then I can just put an even coat across the whole coin or work on removing the wax.  An example of that is on my Pontius Pilate coin below.

https://www.forumancientcoins.com/gallery/displayimage.php?pos=-70456

Offline Andrew McCabe

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Re: Badly Tooled Coins Here
« Reply #292 on: December 06, 2011, 06:07:23 pm »
It has been said that they come from Italy and noted how close they are in style to aitnacoins' Ebay offers. I haven't studied them closely enough to be sure, because to be honest, it would be a very unpleasant task to do so.

Unfortunately, even though some of the other big firms note tooling whenever they notice it, the fact that these tooled coins are sold at all, sometimes in large numbers, may make them more acceptable to collectors and thus lead to more tooled coins. I don't know what kind of collector these people are that see a tooled coin, no incredible rarity that would not be available untooled, and bid anyway, often hundreds or thousands of dollars.

There was also a huge number of tooled coins at a recent high-end Italian auction. I'm just amazed they passed ordinary inspection.

You are probably aware that I made a "big deal" about the huge number of tooled and badly altered coins used as illustrations in Rainer Albert's book on Republican coins (the most recent edition), and I also posted on German lists about that book. Some of the replies I received suggested that no one cares - readers who said they were happy to have a German language book even with some mistakes. Well, from recollection, about 75 of the illustrated coins were either forgeries or tooled. I think that made the book useless. A collection full of tooled coins is equally useless, because you no longer know which coins to trust.

The moral for the ordinary collector is: do NOT buy tooled coins. It completely destroys the credibility, interest of, and saleability of your collection, because for every 1 tooled coin someone sees, they will presume there are another 10 tooled coins hidden where they cannot detect the tooling.

Offline mwilson603

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Re: Badly Tooled Coins Here
« Reply #293 on: December 06, 2011, 07:17:37 pm »
The dealer has a many-decade-long positive reputation and is an expert and respected numismatist who is known for selling good quality always-genuine coins and to reacting immediately and positively to any issue with a purchaser. It appears he is now selling a group of genuine but tooled coins. I think this is crazy but not malevolent. In the related ebay sales he has generally described the coins as tooled. There is also a grey area of coins which seem to be lightly tooled but not marked as such, and it appears the other dealer mentioned on this thread is selling similar pieces. Remember the criterion for NFSL is that there be unquestionable and deliberate deception.

In many different markets, i.e. not just coins, once a business starts moving down the road of cutting corners, and maybe misleading customers, it is rare that they return to the right path.  Unfortunately profit margins mean more to some people than integrity.  I am not categorically saying that this is the case in this instance, however I have heard this name mentioned a few times recently, and unfortunately usually in association with bad practices.  If they are unwittingly doing it then surely they should never had earned such a great reputation if their knowledge is so poor, and if they are doing it malevolently then they deserve to be on the list.
Obviously, if they revert back to the style of business that gained them this supposed superb reputation, then of course leeway should be given, and the question marks disappear.  However, surely if they continue with these practices, then at some point the end result of what they are doing has to be taken into account, and "collectors" who know no different should be able to find a clear warning about them.
regards
Mark

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Re: Badly Tooled Coins Here
« Reply #294 on: December 06, 2011, 10:42:00 pm »
Peddling large numbers of tooled coins... but another example of poor judgement which the formerly respected principal of this auction house seems to be exhibiting with increasing frequency in old age. The profit imperative now appears to override sound judgement  and reputation is on a slippery slope as a result.

Offline areich

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Re: Badly Tooled Coins Here
« Reply #295 on: December 07, 2011, 06:19:06 am »
The business model is that the only employee is a secretary and coins on Ebay are described and listed by a number of different people who receive a percentage of their coins' price realized. It doesn't pay to be too honest and it isn't really necessary to own or consult real books when you can just copy and paste from the internet. Some are better (as in knowledgable and honest) at it than others though I suspect these are not necessarily the most successful.

I'm not sure who does the real auctions but it's probably one or more of the same people. Sadly, collectors who are informed about these things seem to be in a minority and if you're not online and can't see these things for yourself there is no reason to ever doubt the integrity of these auction houses with good names and a long history. The fact that the people who earned the reputations that these houses are using up are spinning in their graves apparently has no effect on their descendents or in some cases on the people who bought the name.

Andreas Reich

Ghengis_Jon

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Badly Tooled Coins Here
« Reply #296 on: December 23, 2011, 06:35:19 pm »
Merry Christmas from a Medusa that suddenly got uglier...


Ghengis_Jon

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Badly Tooled Coins Here
« Reply #297 on: January 01, 2012, 12:14:34 pm »
Just plain fugly...


Offline Andrew McCabe

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Re: Badly Tooled Coins Here
« Reply #298 on: January 01, 2012, 12:29:24 pm »
Just plain fugly...

Yes. I'm guessing this is a Lanz tooling. They seem to process them through a mince-meat machine, producing a recognizably fugly style. http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=fugly

Lloyd Taylor

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Re: Badly Tooled Coins Here
« Reply #299 on: January 01, 2012, 07:30:08 pm »
Just plain fugly...

Yes. I'm guessing this is a Lanz tooling. They seem to process them through a mince-meat machine, producing a recognizably fugly style. http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=fugly

I just wonder who buys this crap? Yet another of life's mysteries!

There must be demand, because the garbage keeps on coming, but who and where are the buyers who must exist in significant numbers to support the machine that churns out these tooled monstrosities? Imagine what the rest of their life must be like if they think this garbage is good stuff!  I know it sounds arrogant (and feel free to call me such), but my mind boggles at the thought of such indiscriminate taste and and an intellect that believes this stuff is in any sense authentic.

 

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