Gonna try to up my game
Mgarmy
Posts: 2,296 ✭✭✭✭✭
Bought a coin microscope that takes hd video and pictures so I stop sending problem coins to our host. All my problem coins are now slabbed and the plastic messes up the true view under the microscope. Can any of you with the ability post a pic of a un-slabbed cleaned or polished morgan I can use as my control group to compare against?
Thank you for the assist.
V/r
Mike
100% positive transactions with SurfinxHI, bigole, 1madman, collectorcoins, proofmorgan, Luke Marshall, silver pop, golden egg, point five zero,coin22lover, alohagary, blaircountycoin,joebb21
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Good luck. I discovered years ago that as soon as you up the magnification too much, EVERYTHING looks like a problem coin. LOL
You shouldn't need a microscope to see if a Morgan is cleaned or polished. Why do you?
bob
So actually there is no such thing as a "perfect" coin!
Blast white vs dipped? Different look than whizzed etc. I have had coins I was sure were going to be problems come back 65’s and visa versa. Just took a bath on 4 morgan cc’s I bought at the Annandale coin show. Roled the dice and crapped out. So either up my game on the raw or pay dealer inflated prices for GSA’s and already slabbed. Gotten to the point where I think everything not slabbed (morgans) is likely a problem crack out.
100% positive transactions with SurfinxHI, bigole, 1madman, collectorcoins, proofmorgan, Luke Marshall, silver pop, golden egg, point five zero,coin22lover, alohagary, blaircountycoin,joebb21
I think Bob's point is that you can tell white vs. over-dipped with much lower magnification. The same is true with polished as well as whizzed. In fact, sometimes the larger magnification makes natural surface features seem bigger and more suspicious than they are.
Now @Insider2 always uses a stereomicroscope, so he's gotten good at looking at things through that lens. But it is a learned skill and somewhat tricky. You can go and look at some of the images he's posted. They are not always clear to my eye because I'm not used to that viewpoint. But I feel quite confident in seeing over-dipped, whizzed, or polished coins with a 3x or 7x lens.
I'm used to a 10X loupe from from my gemological days and that's the maximum magnification I depend on today for discerning problem coins from good ones.
"“Those who sacrifice liberty for security/safety deserve neither.“(Benjamin Franklin)
"I only golf on days that end in 'Y'" (DE59)
All I use is a 10X loupe.
So sounds like I may have over done it. Well at least I can take pictures now. Will get a 10x loupe. Ty all for the advice
100% positive transactions with SurfinxHI, bigole, 1madman, collectorcoins, proofmorgan, Luke Marshall, silver pop, golden egg, point five zero,coin22lover, alohagary, blaircountycoin,joebb21
The microscope is a perfectly good tool. But in my experience, it takes a lot of experience with that kind of magnification to understand what you are seeing. You can definitely have a lot of fun with it.
While I would not use a microscope for issues such as you discuss, (I use a Zeiss 3x6x9x loupe) they can be a good tool for examining other details such as die polish lines, die cracks, tooling....Cheers, RickO
I have two loupes on my desk. A 5x and a 10x, all I need. My point on needing a microscope is exactly as stated by @jmlanzaf. You should be able to decerne problems coins with a hand loupe. Dipping, if properly done, cannot be detected by most. Overdipping or improperly rinsed, etc, can easily be seen with a handheld and likely with the naked eye.
bob