First Attempt Axial-Help/Comments

"Not sure what is causing the 2013 showing above the date on the coin. ?"

Date was most likely being reflected off of your glass onto the coin due to the angle of your lighting.
I like the look of the nickel; lighting may be a tad harsh. The Morgan lighting is too harsh & looks unnatural. The Panda coin also does not have a natural look to it & as Ray pointed out shows direct light hitting it. You can also see @ 7 oclock too much light reflection/glare from the glass.
I have found that to achieve true axial lighting is difficult & did not provide me with a natural look to the coin. This may be due to the quality of the glass I am utilizing, lighting or a combination of the 2. What I have discovered is that a combination of axial & direct lighting (my form of ized axial lighting) gave me the look I was trying to achieve with toned & PL/DMPL Morgans. In order to achieve this I had to shoot in entire darkness & shroud certain items in the room that reflected light with black cloth & really play with the lighting angles & glass angle which changed with the unique differences in each coin. You may also find that diffusing the lighting works better on some coins and on some not so much. There is a lot of trial and error involved here but eventually you get the pic that really represents the coin & makes it pop. The other issue that helped in this process for me is stacking photos using this method. Took me a while to figure out how to get the stacking program to work but it was worth the aggravation.
One other suggestion. For me the jansjo's just won't cut it for lighting using this technique. I found using these provided much better lighting for me:
https://goccf.com/t/176225

I have spent a good deal of the day working on getting some better shots of these coins, not sure if I have made much progress. First, these were taken in a dark room (night) with the entire setup covered in black including the camera and copy stand. I also softened the light with some tissue. I tried to be careful and make sure only the reflected light hit the coins. I still seem to be getting to much light, hot spot on panda and maybe on the Jeff although it looks alot like the coin in hand. The Morgan also looks pretty good compared to the actual coin. Anyway, here are the results. Did I make any improvement at all? Again, any help/suggestions will be appreciated.

This is NOT my axial lighting setup
BUT
I wanted to show you what my light sources are like.
Note that they are tubes (5" long) rather than point source type lights.



Here's one image of my setup (without much of the blackout curtains).
Notice EVERYTHING paintable is a flat black; the draping is black corduroy.

Thanks for the replies. I have adjusted the lighting and cannot see any light hitting the coin except reflected light. I have also tried every different light source I have with no luck. Chereepicker-I have also adjusted the angle of my glass to no avail; in fact, it seems like the more I do, the worse my shots get.

kanga, thanks for the. references. I have read them and will re read. I like how you have a black cloth draping ( about tore my box up changing the angle of the glass). Are you using any special glass? That may be an area that I need to adjust. Did you build your glass frame? Looks like it is easily adjustable.

Thanks again, I am going to keep reading and listening to the experts till I get better at this.

I bought a 1 foot square of ¼" safety glass (not plate glass).
I built my own frame and did the best I could with the tools at hand to fix the glass firmly at 45°.
It's NOT adjustable so any changes would be significant.

IF your setup is with the glass at 45° to the table top then your light source HAS to be set so the light rays are parallel to the desktop.
Note that I have a 2x4 blocking the light from shining directly on the coin.
The geometry of the whole setup has to be reasonably close to correct.

Do tests with the positioning of your light source.
In a dark room you should be able to see where the light is hitting the table after it's reflected by the glass.
Move your light source around until the reflected light illuminates the spot where your coin will be placed.

LOTS of trial and error involved in finding the correct setup.

I guess I am ignorant of this subject, but your idea of axail lighting is to put a box around something just doesn't jive with me...looks like you have 2 lights on 180 degree's apart
pointing into a box?I always thought Axial lighting was a lighting source that is projected from all angles, such as a "ring" lighting system.....360 degree's of light source...
2 lights will never do this.....one can use glass at a 45 degree angle between the lens and the subject as others have done,,, but this is not axial...By the way.. I think your pictures are good, but they are not axial......

Yep, that's the axial "look". Now it's all about size of light source and post-processing.