Pit Your Skills Against PCGS! Grades Posted!

the Morgan I say is beautiful, But to much chatter on the obverse I say MS-63PL
next the bust half EF-Au.
The 1864 Two Cent gorgeous I say MS-64 looks like a sharp strike for the series
and the 1865 Two Cent Maybe MS-63 but I think more like a MS-62


I tried to grade these with out my book, I hope I did well

I think MS-63 PL for the Morgan
VF-35 for the Bustie..

Not even going to try the 2 cent pieces, I have very little knowledge on that series!

Nice coins guys!

As far as the pictures.......

When you are done with everyone elses coins that are going in for this group, please put your camera in the settings you used for the PL pics, put into a padded box, and mail to me. Feel free to insure it. I have some extra GW dollars to trade for it, and they have no errors!!! In checking ebay, the no error coins may be the rarity!!

Thanks again for all of the work you are putting in.

Sorry, I still maintain that the Bust half is VF25. Just a little too much wear on the brow, hair, and clasp for higher. Unfortunately, that does not mean that PCGS will see it that way, but that's what I would grade it to sell.

I am very curious as to what grade it will bring. I think ANACS would grade it the same way I did, but I don't know about PCGS.

I'm going to repost my camera setup, in response to the comments and so that you'll understand that it's not as complex or exacting as you think to get quality coin pics. Here's the whole rig:



That space doubles as my PC repair station (I'm a freelance PC tech on the side), so I have to put everything up and take it down every time I shoot coins. Every picture you see me post of a coin comes from that setup. Here are the important aspects:

The camera is a Canon Digital Rebel XT, with a Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro lens. If I am to credit anything with the quality of my pics, it is this truly amazing lens. From the day I took the first picture with this camera, Canon became my only recommendation for a camera to image coins, if only so you can use this wonderful glass.

For lighting, I am using a 48" track light, with as many as 3 of those dangling gooseneck lamps. They hold 50w MR16 halogen bulbs, the smallest-diameter bulbs able to throw that much light, so I can get them as close to vertical as I can over the coin. Usually they are actually touching the barrel of the lens, or infringing on its' field of view, when I shoot a coin. I've wired them in with a dimmer, but I don't use it much since it screws up the white balance. The little table lamp at the side is only used for side-lighting to highlight die cracks and such.

That's all it takes. Cheap lights, placed properly, and a great lens.

The little white wire coming from the camera is an optional, but really helpful, addition to the process. It's a tether to my computer, where I'm using software called DSLR Remote Pro to do the actual picture-taking. With it, I can set aperture, exposure and ISO from the keyboard, and I use the left mouse button to release the shutter. That way, once I get the camera initially set up, I don't have to touch it again. I can vary settings as fast as I can click the mouse. It has a Preview function, so I can see on my monitor what the shot will look like without actually snapping it. The picture is written directly to my hard drive, without using the camera's memory card.

That leads to another important point. Using Tights24's Morgan as an example, I have a total of 15 shots saved, totaling 60MB worth of pictures. I only saved about a third of the shots I took, and I only took about half the shots I Previewed. Of course, this was an extreme example, since I have difficulty getting realistic pics of lustrous silver with my lighting. The Two Cents only required a few tries; I have three of each face saved.

This lens has a real sweet spot for coins between f/8.0 and f/14; I tend to stay in that zone and vary ISO and exposure to get the look I want. Settings vary from about ISO 100, 1/200 @ f/12 for the Morgan to ISO 400, 1/125 @ f/8.0 for the Two Cents.

The narrow aperture setting is why I have to use 150w worth of light. If I went to something wider than f/5.0, which I've done, I get a lesser depth of field that lets me shoot really sharp coins with really nice fields. Unfortunately, the pictures are bogus because the narrow depth of field blurs the fields of the coin, disguising their flaws, when I have the devices in sharp focus.

Tights24 in particular pays the price for this greater depth of field; both of his coins are far nicer in hand than my pictures indicate.

Great idea, SuperDave!
I'll agree with the ms63 on the Morgan, PL if the mirrors are deep enough.
The Bust I will guess VF-30
The 2-cent pieces I have very little experience with, but I will assume they are weakly struck and I'll guess ms62 for the 1864 and ms63 for the 1865.
Cool thread!

quote:

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SuperDave,

Those are really cool pictures. Do you mind if I use them in wikipedia?

I asked Tights24 (I work with him) and he did not care.

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Welcome to Coin Community. Which wiki entry do you desire the images for? I am not sure whether I can actually give you permission to use them. Although I personally do not object, having been posted here they are the property of the website owner under most usage agreements. Furthermore, the coins depicted in this thread do not belong to me, and are only posted here with the express permission of their owners.

I think a reading from Bobby and Susan, the owners of the site, is in order. I'll contact them. If they have no objections to your use of images I have created which are hosted here, then you have my permission to use them, pending the approval of the owners of the individual coins.

A few examples from my collection are posted here, as well:

http://www.coincommunity.org/galler...hp?album=510

Of course, you'll want to put them on another server rather than hotlinking.

I did some research and images of coins are not copyrightable and all images of coins are in the public domain.


"This image depicts a unit of currency issued by the United States of America. It is solely a work of the United States Government, is ineligible for copyright, and is therefore in the public domain"