These toned slab shots turned out decent.

coinpictures

For the first time I tried something different in order to capture the toning on a slabbed piece. It's the coin I initially referred to here. I tilted the camera at about 45 degrees, and had an Ott light shining down on the coin at about 60 degrees opposite the camera. Then I held a white sheet of paper in front of the lamp to cut the glare (I think this made the biggest difference of all).

You don't get the reflection of the mirrors, but you do get to see the colorful toning... this coin is much nicer than the original auction pictures!

rhound1977

I see some pretty blues!!....

coinpictures

Yeah, the reverse is leaps and bounds better than what it looked like in the original auction picture below. It just looks dead.

I'm guessing that had the original auction pics showed the toning, the bidding would have been more spirited. That's two now where gambling based on poor auction pictures has worked in my favor. I have to be careful though, as it's just as easy to get severely screwed by poor auction pictures. It's one of those "gut instinct" things (and trust me, I have plenty of gut ).

IlikeZARcoins

Ha ha - you wouldn't want to get screwed with a bad auction picture, you'd be gutted.