1986-P LMC IIberty...greaser Or PMD?

Don't actually think it was either of those.

My thoughts primarily caused by a worn die and possibly over polished dies - see how you are seeing the double rim from up under the bust heading north and then disappearing after the L. Also notice the lines coming from the I in liberty heading towards the rim. I am also noticing very thin devices IN in the motto also caused my over polishing the dies and the height of the L is smaller than the rest of LIBERTY.

With a Greaser you will see widened flattened devices.

I was pretty convinced it wasn't PMD as I didn't see any other damage in the area. Didn't even think about a worn die. But since the coins surface around the edge of the obverse is sort of concave I think this supports your theory. This is also the reason why the close-up photo is blurry. I tried to focus on the L and it isn't a flat surface there.


On another note: @Spruett This is the 1st copper coin I shot using your suggestion to go with the grey background for copper colored coins. Thanks for that advice. I think the whole coin pictures came out great!

@CoinCents

Again I'll say that I'm only experimenting on a low-budget scale but the grey vs. black background thing came from this topic:

http://goccf.com/t/285872

I also posted what I've been using for backgrounds.

The way I think about it is having contrast between the background and coin. With darker colored coins like brown copper or bronze, I've been using lighter shades of grey (experimenting with the few different ones I have from that cardstock book).

I'm purely speculating but, for very shiny "copper" coins like the LSCs, a darker grey or even near-black may be best. However, in that case it's more about diffused lighting to limit glare. It takes altering the light source(s) in distance, angle, number, diffusion level, etc.

I'm new to photographing coins but do have some (amateur) experience with DSLRs and tweaking manual settings. I only wish it were feasible for me to use a DSLR for my coin images. I only use my phone (less than 3 years old) currently and it is definitely lacking in image processing even compared to the Nikon D1H (16 years old) I had.

It's not coin related but the pics I posted here:

http://goccf.com/t/284755

...were taken with the D1H that is 2.7MP. My phone is 13MP and really doesn't compete.