Coin Photos And Lack Thereof On Ebay

I use ebay as well as my LCS. They are different, both have some real benefits. I live in the middle of nowhere, so I don't travel to shows much, but hope to in the future.
I really rely on good pictures when buying, and tend to favor vendors that have better pictures. Also, I think it helps me to have better pictures when selling on ebay. I'm not a dealer, but getting rid of duplicates helps me upgrade and expand.
Sometimes I'm working when tired and the quality suffers. When that happens, I try to edit the listing.
My feeling is if you have over 5,000 coin sales on ebay and still use crappy pictures, something else is wrong. That said, there is a real skill to being able to see through blurry pics, and an occasional gamble has sometimes paid big dividends. Remember, a poor picture appears that way to other potential buyers, possibly eliminating some bidders.


One of my favorites.

I like good pics, so I am in agreement with everybody. Although I do agree that on lower end coins I have taken a chance on less than great photos and have been pleasantly surprised.


But I like amateur good pictures from regular sellers better than good pictures from the big sellers, as a rule.
With those you get a better idea of what the coin actually looks like in your room, under a real light.

Some of the professional sellers take incredibly high definition staged lighting pics that you can seriously see some detail-- but not the overall aesthetic and when you get the coin it barely looks like the same coin as what you saw in the picture. But when you look under magnification you can see the same nicks and things, so you know it is the same coin.

So I feel you should take the time to do a good picture-- but not the time to do an incredible picture, haha.