Proof Frankie - opinions on the coin and the photo, please

seanq

I just freed this one from an original set. I thought it looked like a nice cameo, but boy did it ever come to life once I stopped looking at it through the old Mint plastic packaging. I don't think the reverse is strong enough for the coin to go DCAM, but I'd grade it a nice 66CAM or 67CAM.



I'm finally working out a few tricks with my camera. I think putting the coin on a black & white composition notebook helped with the white balance setting. I also went bcak to a regular incandescent light (the Reveal bulbs turned everything red) with a single sheet of white paper acting as a filter to reduce the glare. I also put a piece of black construction paper behind the coin and over the camera (with a hole cut out for the lens) to reduce reflections. Now all I need to do is get my little camera stand working - even with the timer I just can't keep the camera steady enough. I think I took over 40 pictures of this coin and several other nice proofs, and about 38 of them were out of focus.


Sean Reynolds

Myqqy

Very nice looking franklin!! I agree with you, it appears from the photo that the reverse is definately not strong enough to warrent a dcam designation. If your franklin is hairline free, I would say you have a decent shot at a 68, or at least a 67. I'm seeing only very minor spotting on the right obverse field, and few spots on the reverse. Nice find! Are you going to send it to somebody for slabbing??

Cladiator

looks good but adjust the white balance to get rid of the red look. If your camera can't do that you can do it in Photoshop.

LucyBop

I am unable to determine if its a dcam or even a cam from the image....

frost alone does not assure a dcam, deep mirrors does, impossible to guage from the image, and the reverse bell frosting seems a tad to soft for even a cam.... again, I am basing my remarks from these images and I'm sure I would have a better opinion if I had the coin in hand.

seanq

I have Photoshop on my office computer, and I tweaked the balance of the photo above so it looks much closer to reality. The mirrros are nice and deep, in the obverse photo you can see a bit of the camera lens reflecting, even though it was at least four inches away from the coin.



I'm now thinking with Lucy, that the reverse isn't strong enough to get even a CAM designation.

I mentioned some of the trouble I was having with the camera last night (it's a Fuji FinePix A-210). Here's an approximation of what the pics look like in the camera's viewscreen:



Then I dump them off the camera to look at them actual size and they look like this (this one I merged with the reverse and adjusted the balance, but you can see how out of focus it is):



I'm hopeful that with the camera stand and the auto timer, I can finally get both the contrast and the focus at the same time.


Sean Reynolds