And modern touch-up enamels

[slokind]

I didn't mean to photograph the attached evidence; I just improved my lighting, and voilà.  But I have seen it in hand many times on bronzes.
Here are details of two tetrassaria of Diadumenian at Nicopolis ad Istrum.  A die many of us know.  But one of them has been through the hands of someone who just can't leave a coin alone, once it is clean and (if necessary) stabilized.
The touch-up enamel (impervious to acetone, by the way) on the profile and the ear and brushed also, I think, on the cheek was not necessary, as the brown coin shows.  And Diadumenian had a remarkably emphatic nose, anyway, for a child of his age.  Not that the touch-up work made it larger, or scarcely.  Not that the green isn't nearly the right color (but enamel is not patina!).  But I'd rather it wasn't there.
There is almost no way to collect for study without getting a few coins with touch-up work on them.  It is not the worst of crimes, but you should watch out for it.
I wanted to make the point, too, that sheer outrage ought to be reserved for where it is really needed: Dr. Prokopov's revelation of utterly fake tremisses, for example.  Those are criminal.  The touch-up work is lamentable and stupid but it is not the same.
Pat L.
P.S. These two coins were photographed identically within 5 minutes of each other, and neither has any post-processing except to crop the details for posting.

[bpmurphy]

Pat,

I'm not convinced the second coin has had a lot of work. It's good VF vs Fine and the difference in wear could account for the slight difference in size. On overlay of your two photos reveals the coins are nearly identical in size.  I can't post gof's here so heres a link:

http://bpmurphy.ancients.info/images/misc/diadumenian.gif

Barry Murphy

[slokind]

No, you didn't get the point.  I made very clear that there is little touch-up; I wouldn't be using the coin if there were more.  But the stripe on the profile is very clear and obvious.  Nor has what I said anything to do with grading.  Neither coin is anything to write home about, but both are OK.  Of course they overlay!  They are a double die match (the reverse being a river god).  As for what the die looks like, the obverse is fairly common, so one needn't depend on either of these, except to the extent of linking.  They are exactly the same size, given that they're hand struck so that nanometers are irrelevant, and the green one obv. is higher on the flan.  Since the reverse is not in Pick for Diadumenian, and the corresponding one (no jar, sitting upright, looking l., etc.) for Macrinus has its own die, it was important to me to get both legends complete, for which reason I have these two, complementary in that regard.
Of course, I could easily photograph the obverse of the green coin so that the stripe of green (the main retouching) wouldn't show; it doesn't show on the scan.  It shows up best of all on the .gif overlay.
My point was that it's NOT a crime, though I'd far rather it hadn't been done, and I know others who cringe on seeing it just as I do.  I don't like smoothing of the field, either, because by rearranging molecules it changes the look of the metal.  I don't like smoothing done on charcoal drawings, either, because it does the same thing to the texture of the paper.
By the way, I have been at pains sometimes to reassure nervous persons when their coins do NOT have touch-up work on them.
My only purpose, when I saw what appears on the green coin, was to mitigate some of what has gone on in other threads.  Nuance is important in judgment.
Pat L.

[bpmurphy]

I'm still abit confused Pat. I don't think anything has been done to the profile, you can see the same stripe on the brown coin. I can't tell from the photo if the Patina is real, but I don't think the stripe was added.

Barry

[slokind]

Well, if you're right, that's fine; as I said, it doesn't affect the use of the coin for study.  And my pleading for nuance remains important, whether the touch-up enamels (whose existence is well known, and not only for coins but for other metalwork) were used here or not.  They are called touch-up enamels, which is why I used that word.
But smoothing, filling in, touching up, tooling are different procedures.  I don't know what to call Ren Wax, but it's hell to photograph, and I usually remove it; its sheen is different from that of clean metal or clean patina.  I am happy to deal with the glint off the real thing in photographing.
None of these is fakery or counterfeiting.  Neither is re-patinating, though it is abominable to look at.
Fakery is done to make something for which there is demand and sell it as ancient.
Counterfeiting is done to make a medium of exchange for circulation that has nothing behind it (including the modern systems of accounting that have largely taken the place of gold, gold itself rising and falling on the market).
Language must not be used merely to express feelings!
Pat L.

[Rupert]

Just to see whether I got you right and everybody here is talking about the same thing, Patricia: is this the "stripe on the profile" that was remade in your opinion?

Rupert

[slokind]

Yes, that is the place that is most apparent even in a photo not even made to show such things.  And, as I said, it's nothing dreadful.  But I didn't say 're-made'.  You can see from the coin that is brownish and is hardly patinated at all, that the contour is essentially unaltered and that the 'green stripe' only "clarifies" the contour.  But the workman needed a very steady hand even to do as well as he did, and the nostril is coarsened if only slightly, and the structural continuity of the bulbous tip of the nose with the rest of the nose is a little compromised, and the even green of the stripe does reduce the effect of a 3-D head in light-and-air surroundings, making it a little more like a profile on a nice tetrarchic follis.  On good heads of Diadumenian and his father, delicate variations in the emphasis in the contour from one part to the next give an illusion of degrees of solidity and of softness or hardness.  I know that makes me sound like some sort of aesthete, but the dies were cut, the best ones, by just such aesthetes, even if unsung and perhaps also underpaid--we don't know.
I think it's more serious and informative to be sensitive to the engraver at his work than to be interested in whether Diadumenian really loved his father or whether Maesa had a soft spot in her nature or whether Caracalla broke his father's heart--or a host of other such fancies.  Of course, it's hard to talk about the engraver, because we have no verbal info for him at all, but that may be to the good, since Style is the Man Himself.  All the rest, like wondering whether Wolfgang was a satisfactory lover to Costanze, is not relevant to what we are studying.
I never meant to 'bad-mouth' anyone, only to call beginners' attention to something that sooner or later they're bound to notice.
Pat L.

[slokind]

Here, from a less cheap specimen, also from a better die, here is (just for comparison) a coin that I never tire of looking at; it has some wear, but that is all.  I think this is the perfect Diadumenian, and it is everything that I can expect of ancient metal.  Pat L.

[rick fox]

slokind - what is the hole in his neck?

[Rupert]

It's the usual centration dimple left over from preparing the flan in some rounding-machine.

Rupert

[slokind]

This is for readers in early stages of collecting.  Most other readers know the use of such coins.
Here in wretched condition is a coin with the same obverse die as my favorite detail, above.  All of the reverses used with this obverse die are interesting in one way or another, but the unassuming one shown here is:
• not listed in Pick (note the altar)
• not listed in Varbanov (either language)
• not found in CoinArchives
• not in Wildwinds
• not in Malcolm's Diadumenian site
(in all cases checking under Bonus Eventus, too).
This is the kind of coin one sometimes must rely on and the kind I worry about.  I got it very cheap.  That is just what may tempt someone to try to make one look a little better.  As I said above, it probably would not be big-time greed, but forget the moral judgment: the evidence of the coin would be lost.
Of course, I'd be happy to see an image of a better specimen, equally one with a different obverse link, but for now I'm glad that the person who cleaned it went no further.  Pat L.

[curtislclay]

I would not call this coin "wretched", though the lack of rev. legend on l. where the governor's name belongs is too bad.

In my eyes the obv. is entirely presentable, the rev. easily good enough to allow identification of the die!

[slokind]

One last example, this one practically harmless but still not 'top-drawer' in principle.  Even the bumpiness of the brow, subtle in a child, can be matched on other specimens (though others so little worn as this one are very hard to find).  But it is good to practice looking closely.
Here is the usual nice terre verte, this time, I'm glad to say, not on the figure but on the field.  Not only can you see brushstrokes between the brow and the ME of DiadouMEnianos, you can see where the touch-up goes up onto the E (a rounded one) in a way that residual patina would not do.  Also, you can see the uniform 'ribbon' of touch-up around the chin.
The 'artist' obviously wanted to enhance.  I cannot respect his taste in doing so.  And you may want to notice such a thing on your own coins, since, if you ever wanted to sell them, you'd want to mention it, if only in the most flattering language.  Pat L.