The first coin below is in the upcoming
Gorny & Mosch
Auction 181, Oct. 2009, lot 2360, and is described in the
catalogue as "
Fine black-brown
patina, fields smoothed, otherwise EF."
Several
members of the
German Numismatikforum consider this coin to have been completely reworked on the
obv., every detail remade, while others, with whom I agreed, saw evidence of
smoothing, but considered the details of the
portrait and
obv. legend to be substantially original, and hardly
tooled at all.
The second coin below is an untooled specimen from the same
obv. die, which I found through Joaquim Blay's online die study of
Decius' double
sestertii,
www.qblay.com/DeciusDS . Blay also lists two specimens from the same dies both sides as the
Gorny piece, but this other specimen shows the details of the
obv. die more clearly, which are in question here.
Several details of the
Gorny piece HAVE been altered, which I did not suspect before identifying the die: the lower end of the circlet of the
radiate crown and the lowest ray on the crown have been altered into two bows, as of a
laurel wreath; the outer
wreath tie has been given an extra bend at its tip; and the fold of cloak below the
wreath ties
had been strengthened and closed at the end, making it into a distinct loop.
It also looks as though the stippling of the emperor's hair has been strengthened all over, particularly below the circlet of the crown. This I DID suspect before identifying the die!
However, comparison with the untooled piece will show that virtually every other detail of the
portrait and
obv. legend is original and unaltered, as I and several others originally thought.
I am posting here because the images are too large to be accepted by the
German forum. An additional advantage is that I save myself the labor of trying to express these comments in
German!