Preliminary Charlotte report: bought a gorgeous toned UNC 1888 British double florin...
lordmarcovan
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... but this thread is merely a tease, since I have no pics of it. Nor will I for some time, because the coin went off to ANACS. It's MS, I believe, unless some rub somewhere eluded my loupe. It has really nice cartwheel luster. It also has the most gorgeous pastel toning I have seen on a coin in some time. Some pale sea greens practically leap off the coin, particularly the reverse, when it's held to the light just so. It's a real eyepopper and in my opinion a trophy coin.
I also bought an 1695 Austrian States (Salzburg) 1/2 thaler graded NGC AU58, which was my single most expensive purchase, at a bit under $400. It has faintly prooflike surfaces and is pretty good looking itself. Unfortunately the slab is a bit scuffy, but not too bad. I need to polish up the plastic.
I got a big 1603-4 James I shilling with a really nice portrait. It was affordable due to some scratches in the field (apparent graffiti- somebody carved a Roman numeral "III" there, it looks like.)
Let's see... what else? I got a WW1 US soldier's hand-engraved dogtag that was made from a silver French 2-franc piece, which is pretty cool, though I paid way too much for it, I think. I bought some other love token-like stuff, a holey Charles I 2d for my vest (which I might sell since the vest is overfull), and some ancient Widow's Mites. I got a small group of English 17th-century farthing tokens from Ye Dead King in the hotel room swap, and a nice Aussie 1927 florin from Glenn (rhound1977)...
...uhh... a 1696 William III shilling and a 1723-SSC shilling, both VG-ish, a 1754 pillar type Mexico 2-reales piece, ditto, and a Spanish 2-reales coin from the 1790s, as I recall.
...and a weird token of some kind that I'll just have to scan later.
...and a Mad Marty Cook Islands "weenie nickel" in the custom slab, from the hand of the Mad One himself. (My first time meeting him in person).
I even posed with the chicken, as did danglen.
I also bought a pair of Liteside Seated halves in lower grade, and one or two junkbox Liteside pieces.
It was fun, but I was slightly disappointed by the selection- this is the first show I have ever come home from with money left over!
Another purchase was the newly-released "Early Dated Coins Of Europe, 1234-1500", by Robert Levinson. Though I may only ever hope to own one or two at most of the pieces listed in the book, it is nice to have something to stick in the gaping hole in my library that exists between ancient Rome and 1601, when the Krause picks up coverage.
While I didn't score as much inexpensive pre-1800 material or ancient silver as I'd hoped, I had fun, and it was definitely worth the trip.
I also bought an 1695 Austrian States (Salzburg) 1/2 thaler graded NGC AU58, which was my single most expensive purchase, at a bit under $400. It has faintly prooflike surfaces and is pretty good looking itself. Unfortunately the slab is a bit scuffy, but not too bad. I need to polish up the plastic.
I got a big 1603-4 James I shilling with a really nice portrait. It was affordable due to some scratches in the field (apparent graffiti- somebody carved a Roman numeral "III" there, it looks like.)
Let's see... what else? I got a WW1 US soldier's hand-engraved dogtag that was made from a silver French 2-franc piece, which is pretty cool, though I paid way too much for it, I think. I bought some other love token-like stuff, a holey Charles I 2d for my vest (which I might sell since the vest is overfull), and some ancient Widow's Mites. I got a small group of English 17th-century farthing tokens from Ye Dead King in the hotel room swap, and a nice Aussie 1927 florin from Glenn (rhound1977)...
...uhh... a 1696 William III shilling and a 1723-SSC shilling, both VG-ish, a 1754 pillar type Mexico 2-reales piece, ditto, and a Spanish 2-reales coin from the 1790s, as I recall.
...and a weird token of some kind that I'll just have to scan later.
...and a Mad Marty Cook Islands "weenie nickel" in the custom slab, from the hand of the Mad One himself. (My first time meeting him in person).
I even posed with the chicken, as did danglen.
I also bought a pair of Liteside Seated halves in lower grade, and one or two junkbox Liteside pieces.
It was fun, but I was slightly disappointed by the selection- this is the first show I have ever come home from with money left over!
Another purchase was the newly-released "Early Dated Coins Of Europe, 1234-1500", by Robert Levinson. Though I may only ever hope to own one or two at most of the pieces listed in the book, it is nice to have something to stick in the gaping hole in my library that exists between ancient Rome and 1601, when the Krause picks up coverage.
While I didn't score as much inexpensive pre-1800 material or ancient silver as I'd hoped, I had fun, and it was definitely worth the trip.
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The toning on my double florin looks sorta like the greens you see on the obverse of that coin, though in the case of my British coin, the greens are more prominent on the reverse.
Anything unusual on the design of the 1/2 thaler? Any flan cracks (many of these were overstruck)?
Tangent alert after seeing your link to the Columbian half:
Not to hijack your thread, but for some reason Columbian halves can readily be found with really cool and colorful toning... probably because so many were stored away as keepsakes.
It's a type that takes just a STUPID jump from MS64 to MS65. That coin you linked to was $900. If you're willing to drop 2 points, you can get them for $40-60. Colorful sliders can be found for $10-30. If you're into colorful historical pieces on the cheap, ask your local dealer for Columbian halves..
Not to mention that the reverse design is really eyecatching.
(I'm assuming Shep already has this ship.
I just bought this one on the BST for $46, NGC MS62 (seller's pics):
One I bought a few months back:
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As I recall, the name on it is Cameron, or Gameron. (Cameron seems more likely but the way the serif on the C is, it could be a G.) It is holed at left and right, in other words, at 3:00 and 9:00. The obverse with the sower lady is unengraved, while the reverse (and therefore the date of the coin) was planed off prior to engraving.
It is a neat piece and really interesting (to me, anyway), but after I bought it I spent the drive home wondering what I'd been thinking, to pay so much. It was an impulse buy that I might regret- not so much for the piece itself, which is cool, but because of the price I paid.
If you don't mind my asking, what'd you pay for yours?
'Cause I dropped fifty bucks on mine.
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I've been wanting to use a scanner for "quick and dirty" pics (Ebay sales mostly) since it's much faster than shooting the coins.
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LordM, I thought the 'shroom would be the last to use a scanner but I've noticed a big improvement in his images which now look digital camera-Like.
Gotta add- my printer/copier/scanner when used for coin images takes about the same amount of fussing-with that my Olympus digital camera takes in order to produce an image (and I really prefer the camera imaging software- thanks again Cosmic after all these years).
All things being equal I prefer imaging by camera. Having said that, LordM, your new scanner results in a far superior image than before.
is that you end up being governed by inferiors. – Plato
Nice pics of that half-thaler, no? I was pleased. Of course the luster did not show completely, but I bet I could do the angled slab trick with this scanner.
I asked many people what affected the focal depth of a scanner, or whatever it is called- in other words, the distance above the glass it will effectively scan stuff. You see, I had a big old Memorex in the 1990s that would do stuff even half an inch off the glass, and it took lovely angled shots and so on. I would still be using it if it were USB compatible, perhaps. My cheap Canon, on the other hand, would not scan slabbed coins without blurring them, because even that little bit of clear plastic between the coin and the glass distorted the image- anything scanned on the Canon had to be absolutely flat on the glass.
Nobody was ever able to answer my question effectively, about what causes the difference, but I notice that my cheapo Canon is really slim and not very deep, whereas the old Memorex and this new HP have deep boxes on them.
Wanting something "quick n' dirty" yet capable of producing decent pics was exactly what has made me recently revert to a scanner. I think digital photography with a camera is superior, when the photographer knows what he is doing and has the right equipment, but for the technically challenged like me, the scanner might be the better choice. I take some pretty good landscape shots with the camera, but for macro/coin photography, I have come to the sad conclusion that I will never be a Darkhorse (Phil Arnold) or Mgoodm3 or Airplanenut or Cosmicdebris. I'm better with a scanner than with a camera.
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