I Need Help To Find A Thread (Archives)

I do not recall one for PCGS, but there was this one for Heritage. Unfortunately the photos have expired.

Excellent!

Thanks TNG, I just replaced them in the OP.

TNG I would not use the compressed gas. I tried that once on a gold proof coin much to my surprise ruined the beautiful finish but only a small part of it. All because I could not find one of those rocket ship hand air pump. Found the pump an hour later regretting my earlier BLUNDER. I guess part of my Tuition in Life!

Nickos - hopefully this was the thread you were looking for. If there are any other questions I can answer let me know. I also am familiar with other coin photo setups elsewhere. I never worked at PCGS but did do some work at some of the other lesser TPGs a long time ago.

Thanks for replacing my photos Bobby, it happened before I knew CCF had a dedicated forum for fixing the PB shots that disappeared, when I re-uploaded them.

Those little blowers are by Giotto and they make two sizes that one (normal) and a newer mini one they are called "Giotto Rocket Air Blaster" - I've bought many over the years, gifts, replacement ones that were lost or stolen, they are one of my favorite items ever from when I was a professional photographer. I hated spending money on canned air, and when the price started to climb up over $5.00 per can, I was so glad I found these gems. In fact I have one on my desk right now, that's used just for blowing cat hair off coin holders or my keyboard, etc.

Wonderful little things and not too expensive either, last forever basically. They work much better than the typical ear syringe as they are designed to literally jet air out of the tip almost as fast as canned air goes, yet still be gentle and not tear film/paper and no residue from propellant, a huge plus.

Here is a photostream of PCGS' Photo Room and Phil Arnold the head photographer at PCGS that does the majority of all PCGS photography.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/profe...31829301458/

While there isn't much to go off from the photos of the setups, I can say they are using the same lens I primarily shoot with as well. It's the Canon Macro EF 100mm 1:2.8 USM Lens and from the time frame of these photos, that would be attached to a Canon EOS 5DmkII or mkIII body. They probably upgrade every few years, so now are using the same lens but the version 2 with IS, though maybe not, as the need for IS is about nil on a good tripod setup. They most definitely upgraded the Camera body.

EDIT: I was wondering what the strange scanner looking device was that is silver with the Canon DSLR attached. I believe it is the old PCGS SecureView, imilar to the Secure Scanner only for coins in slabs;

Since it's a bit different looking, maybe the newest version of "the sniffer" PCGS has mentioned and shown it in the past. It doesn't so much as sniff the coin as it analyses the spectrum and the image then using some database coding and imaging algorithms it searches for previous matches in the system. Interesting and custom proprietary hardware and software most likely. If I'm wrong and someone knows better please correct me here.

Here is an old blog page Phil Arnold wrote after joining PCGS and building the Photo Department.

https://www.PCGS.com/news/zen-and-t...-photography

And one more good article on photographing the Reverse Proof Buffalos by Phil.

https://www.PCGS.com/news/photograp...roof-buffalo

and last is a CoinWeek Podcast where Phil is interviewed.

https://coinweek.com/coinweek-podca...phil-arnold/

Hope some of this helps, and for the record I have never met Phil personally, however I do admire his photography and don't envy his work load!