Recent Newps with images

spacehayduke

Hi Folks,
I have found some very nice newps recently. Images below. Keep in mind as I have said before, the colors in my images are those I see when I look at the coin under the light. If you go look up these certs, you may find slightly different colors on the toned coins shown below by other numi photographers. We could get into a full thread just on lighting, which balance, and color but suffice to say each find the tones to be slightly different quite often.

So here are a few of them:

I picked up this nice Barber Quarter from Liz Coggan. I am striving for a complete set of O mint BQ's in 55-58 and CACed or CACGed. This is hard, they don't seem to be that much available. CAC/CACG has stickered/graded only 43/1 with 4 in 55 and 5 in 58. I have obtained all but the 1900-O and 1906-O in grades ranging from 20-62 CAC, with 5 of the 16 O-mint dates in 55 or 58, and I started this in 2017. In my view this makes it a very hard set to complete. Even going into MS grades which I have done with a couple, the coin has to have the right eye appeal, so I have passed on many.
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Here is a proof BQ from the @ldhair collection. I got it off GC in early January. I wanted one of these for a long time, in order to learn how to take good images of proofs and particular, colorful proofs. This can be tricky and I need to learn it. This coin has beautiful mirrors on both sides and mostly deep blue toning. The first image is with the lights straight on. You can see the blue/orange tone and if the coin were blast white, the fields would be black but they are toned. If it were a cameo coin, the cameo appearance of the devices would be strongly evident in this straight on shot. Another technique is to use axial lighting. This is where you have a piece of glass at 45 degrees between the coin and the lens and bounce light off it and onto the coin. This, if adjusted just right, will give uniform light across the whole of the surfaces and bring our the color nicely, or on a blast white proof, bring out the white mirrors (for silver of course). Since FUN, I spent a few tries now setting up the axial lighting on my set up and I am close. This set of obv and rev images (the second set below) is not bad, but you can see that the hair above the head, the Liberty band of Miss Liberty, nose, and cheek are dark gray, which is really not the color. I have not quite got the lighting oriented perfect yet and one has to pick up the clues for this and learn how to identify when the light is perfect. I am learning how and will keep at it. CAC/CACG have had events on 43 1902 Pr coins and 7 Pr/CAMs, all in 61-68 grades as you would expect. I hope to buy more of these, I had the fortune of seeing this in hand at the GC booth at FUN which convinced me to bid strong.
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Just to bring out the point about axial lighting, here is a Franklin I have had for a long time, mostly blast white except at the borders moving inward. You can see the white mirrors well using the axial lighting. Interestingly, the cameo - frosty devices comes out on the reverse, but the obverse does not look cameo here, not enough contrast between Mr. Franklin and the surrounding fields, I am thinking if regraded it would lose that designation, but it is in a fatty and thus staying put in that holder.
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Here is my first indian cent purchase in a decade. I am re-learning how to shoot copper. This coin was actually challenging to image well. When I did the straight on 10/2 lighting shot, the whole obverse looks as if it has a white spot light coming out of the center. So then I had to move the lights around to subdue that. Still had too much brightness in the center of the obverse. So then I added diffusion which has reduced the brightness some. A nice shot, but will take abit more tweaking to get perfect and erase the brightness across the head above the hair and feathers. Still very passable and I don't mind that obv look, but know it can be better with fine tuning. BTW, the reason for the bright spotlight in obv center? Booming, super flashy luster. Hence why PCGS gave this the plus, gem with super flash. There are quite a few of these out there - 304, 20, and 97 grading events in 65, 65+, 66 at PCGS, 90 and 35 events in 65 and 66 at CACG/CAC, so one can be patient and find the right one. The only open question is, what kept this from 66?
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Finally, one more quarter, this one of the Liberty Seated variety. This coin has tremendous and booming luster beneath the nicely toned surfaces when rotating under the light. Another from the @ldhair collection that I got to see in hand at FUN at the GC table. I generally like to pursue O-mint LSQ's, but this one has great eye appeal. There are 26 CAC/CACG events in MS64, and most of them that I have seen have great eye appeal.

Best, SH

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alaura22

Great looking pics and great looking coins

Dave99B

Great coins, fantastic pics! P.S. Liz has great material.

Dave

TomB

Holy Cow!

You are too hard on yourself on your images. Regardless, you picked up some truly wonderful coins and that O-mint Barber quarter goal no doubt looks terrific already.

pursuitofliberty

'04-O Quarters are no easy pick-up's, that's for sure. Nice coins and nice images!!

jom

Barber Quarters in AU? Are you nuts? lol

jom

PS: Great pics!

robec

Awesome group of pickups. Great work behind the lens, particularly with the BQ. I normally don’t care for axial results but this was beautifully done.

spacehayduke

Thanks for the responses folks.

Best, SH

spacehayduke

@pursuitofliberty said:
'04-O Quarters are no easy pick-up's, that's for sure. Nice coins and nice images!!

About 1/2 of the O-mint barber quarter dates are just hard to find nice and in upper AU. Some of the dates were easier to find, but most, quite a challenge including all of the ones I still need. Heck of a set to complete.

Best, SH

Catbert

Lovely coins and photos SHD. If your project was easy, then it wouldn’t be as fun to assemble!

asheland

Great pick ups!

spacehayduke

BTW with respect to shooting proofs, here is the image of the Franklin proof with lights straight on. You can see how the mirrors go black and it does bring out the cameo look of the devices:
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And for comparison, here is the axial lighting shot again, showing the white mirrors of the devices (where not toned).
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So you get different looks which is why using 2 techniques on proofs gives interesting results.
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Best, SH