Intensely colored proof Indian Head Cent

ANACONDA

The coin really looks like this however only when you're blasting it with light.

dwood

WHOAAA!!!!!!

That is simply stunning...and from a "take it or leave it" tone guy.

Trade you for a 42-S Lincoln with Phyllis Diller's thumbprint on it?

Catch22

Looks like it was photographed under a black light.....sigh.......

I spent a few minutes looking through your inventory.....stunners.....all of 'em.

IrishMike

Adrian that is a fabulous coin. I saw a whole box of those at FUN, Sarci's coins. Shylock has some beauties too that I saw. I have to say those are the most beautiful coins I have ever seen.

CLASSICS

i drifted thru a sky of blue, with wings pushed by the wind, and gazed upon the beauty in blue, only few will come to know..........shes a beauty.........

stujoe

Mmmmmm. Nice. Grape and Blueberry. I think I will go make myself some toast.

aeast236

I guess it says it all when posted by a dealer that has the best of the best!! If it was from anyone else I would scream AT on that one. Look likes some of the AT's up recently and now on eBay. I do know better though What slabbing co and what grade?
-Aaron

Trime

Anaconda,
The coin as shown is beautiful.

Your footnote that this beautiful appearace was demonstrated when the coin was flooded with light reminded me of a conversation I had with one of our finest on this board about some of my high grade 3CS coins that under direct view and ordinary light look somewhat dark and not exceptional. With light and the 3 degree tilt you have referred to before they show the electric blues and emerald greens and ruby reds that I find exceptional. Pleasure may be in the beholder but the point made by my expert was what ordinarily sells is what you see under the most simple of circumstances. I have been pondering this issue for some time.

IrishMike

Trime, interesting point and I have heard discussions pro and con, that if you have to tilt a coin to see it's true color then it is worth less. Not sure I agree with that. Would love to hear other opinions on the subject.

shylock

That's a great point, and is the most important thing to consider when buying these along with the basic technical points. Colored copper proofs come in varying degrees of depth. Some only reveal light iridescence at drastic angles and look full brown at 90 degrees. Others reveal their colors at just the slightest angle, and since we rarely hold a coin at a perfect 90 degrees their colors are revealed under the "most simple of circumstances" Trime mentions. Others are so deeply toned the angle only changes the shade of the colors.

I prefer the last two, but even with those its nearly impossible to capture what the eye sees in a photograph. You usually have to sacrifice the mirrors or some of the rich color unless you blast them with light at a sharp angle. The coin below looks essentially the same, just a bit darker in tone, at a 90 degree angle to the human eye as it does in this angled image. If anyone has any tips on how to translate that to the camera lens without losing its reflectivity please pass them on.

Dog97

That's a Blue Light Special allright. I didn't notice the date, what year is it?

Lakesammman

I'm setting up a photo lab in the basement after talking photo tips with Russ yesterday. The only hooker is, those of you with beautifully toned IHC's have to send me your coins......

ANACONDA

Nice pics, Lake.

IrishMike said -- "I have heard discussions pro and con, that if you have to tilt a coin to see it's true color then it is worth less."

These three degree coins are also known by experienced numismatists as "honeycomb coins" because the color resides down in the bottom of microscopically thin tubular straw like configurations that completely cover the coin. You can see these straw like thingies clearly with a scanning electron microscope, however when not magnified, or at low magnification, these structures (that was the word I was looking for) appear as the little microscopic dots of blast or scintillizations that make up luster. These three degree or honeycomb coins are actually worth more than regular coins because they far rarer than coins that are beautiful all the time. Those coins, the coins that are beautiful all the time, have shorter straw like structures which allow the visualization of the color at more angles. The fewer degrees the coin is gorgeous, the longer the structures are and the more valuable the coin is.

Clifford

(Well through my first pot.)

Morganluver

Beautiful coin. I had a few PF 65 Indians with colors like that and some even wilder. Unfortunately, I could not image them properly and had to send them back North. Too bad so sad.

CarlWohlforth

That 3 degree stuff is interesting. I enjoy learning something new every day

I guess I'm looking for a more common (not honeycomb) colorful coin that is still beautiful. That way I can actually afford the coin, I think...

Pushkin

ANACONDA

In a theorhetical (i'm sure i spelled that wrong but i'm lazy tonight) sense, coins don't have a true color. There is an appearance that occurs consistently in average lighting but coins reflect and absorb different lights depending in part on what lights there are to absorb and reflect.

Oh, and by the way, that honey comb thing was a joke.

adrian

relayer

Actually, we don't see coins or any other object. All we see is the light that bounces off objects.

We perceive color as different frequencies of electro-magnetic radiation.

So for any object to have color, it just needs to reflect the light back at a different frequency than in receives it. That produces different signals in our brains, which our mind interprets as color.

So the coin doesn't have any color. But the molecules on its surface change the frequency of the light that shines on it.

But for a colorless coin, it sure reflects light pretty.

ANACONDA

See, i told you i knew what i'ze talkin' about.