Is My Lighting Too Harsh?

The lights are at too low an angle. Notice that the highlights (brightest areas) are on the edges of the devices. If you turned the brightness way down, you'd see just a bright outline of the devices. This is the opposite of what you are looking for, which is shadows around the devices rather than highlights. Can you bring your lights up at a higher angle to the coin? Not necessarily higher distance, but higher angle.

The lighting angle is better, especially on the Morgan. I suspect the camera is a bit farther from the coin on the Morgan, and the coin is a bigger, so the angle is a bit higher. Higher on the Kennedy would help further.

Overall you are a bit overexposed. Are you using auto exposure with compensation? I would suggest using aperture priority mode, f5.6 or f6.7 (even f8 for the Morgan), and then go even further negative with compensation. What is you compensation setting for the Morgan?

The highlights are pretty extreme on the Kennedy. Since it's a proof, other techniques such as ring lighting or axial lighting may give you a better result. Higher (angle) lights will help, and you may need to do some diffusion to reduce the hotspotting. The Morgan doesn't appear to need any further diffusion.

You're on the right track!

edited to add...the Kennedy exposure may be OK with a bit of diffusion. The overexposure I am seeing is mostly on the Morgan...

Shane...you're setting exposure positive rather than negative, so that explains the over exposure. You should be at -1/3 or -2/3. I'd recommend going to A mode and setting your aperture to f/8 to start. That will keep your camera from messing with your aperture for every shot. Other than that, just get your camera as far from the coin as you can while still being able to focus properly, make your lights as high angle as you can make them, and practice!...Ray