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A rethink

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ColonialCoinsUK

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In my last journal entry I probably took the suggestion made by my wife a little too lightly - never a good idea!

Having mentioned the apparent lack of detailed information available on numerous aspects of world coinage the suggestion of putting together such articles would be very interesting and also introduce some much needed focus. My initial thoughts on this highlighted two main challenges:

1.   High quality pictures of the coins are essential.
2.   Examples of all coin types are needed.

To address Point 1 I have found various threads on the web on how to take pictures of coins, some of which are very technical, so I would have much to learn about photography - I would also need to acquire the necessary equipment (just have my phone and a scanner at the moment). All guidance gratefully received!

Point 2 is the major challenge as I would not be able to acquire all the necessary 'type' coins to complete any series - financially this is a complete non-starter and would probably take several lifetimes even if unlimited funds were available. The solution would be to use pictures of the coins from other sources (most likely from auction records) although I expect copyright etc therefore comes into play, particularly if the subject matter was in an area popular enough to consider publishing the material as a proper book rather than just as an open access type article. I expect that some members here have published such material and it would be great to get your thoughts on how to approach this.

It looks like my 'to do list' just got longer!

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The images from auction sites are likely to be the intellectual property of the auction host (assuming the company has an employee do this). If they get images from the seller they might belong to the seller. If they pay an outside photographer to take the images, who owns the image will depend on the agreement between the photographer and the auction house. This, of course, applies in the US. UK copyright laws are somewhat different.

You'd have to contact the auction house and see if they'd let you use the images (assuming they own them) in a free or for-profit book. They may or may not want to charge you for use.

I've dealt with this both as a photographer and as a scholar, sometimes wanting to re-use graphics / visuals from other papers / scholarly works. Sometimes a publisher will let you license a graphic for a few dollars. Sometimes the usage fees are absolute murder.

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You should call/email the auction houses as well as the grading services concerning use of their photos.  I think you might be pleasantly surprised at the response. ;)

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Hello my friend long time. I have been in and out of hospitals. Recovering from a broken hip. I hope your doing fine. Now you looked at my Conder tokens. Those pictures are taken with my phone. I hold the token up to the picture of the phone. If it's not accurate I dump it. Now NGC grades these. When it says red brown the picture must be the same as the token. Some are dark. Sure I could alternate it. But why.? Allot of people.do it. If I was to send my set to an auction house along with the pictures there would be no trouble. NGC says proof like. That picture better show it. If it says red it better be read. Some tokens I have taken 10 to 15 pictures till they match. I tell people all the time do not alter your pictures. Your fooling yourself and collector's. Not right. You will get caught. I go thru eBay and I tell the sellers sorry there are no orange tokens. They make them better than they were i was glad to see your name up there. You will do fine. Thanks for writing Mike.

On 8/19/2019 at 6:10 PM, gherrmann44 said:

Today I received back those two moon mission coins, the Kennedy half dollar and the 50th anniversary half dollar coins I sent back to NGC with crossed labels. All is good now. The friendly person on the phone recognized the original problem and told me what to do. It happened just as she said and I am a happy camper. Furthermore, this was at no expense to me. NGC sent a credit to my credit card for postage back to Florida.

 

Edited by MIKE BYRNE
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On 9/23/2019 at 5:50 AM, MIKE BYRNE said:

Hello my friend long time. I have been in and out of hospitals. Recovering from a broken hip. I hope your doing fine. Now you looked at my Conder tokens. Those pictures are taken with my phone. I hold the token up to the picture of the phone. If it's not accurate I dump it. Now NGC grades these. When it says red brown the picture must be the same as the token. Some are dark. Sure I could alternate it. But why.? Allot of people.do it. If I was to send my set to an auction house along with the pictures there would be no trouble. NGC says proof like. That picture better show it. If it says red it better be read. Some tokens I have taken 10 to 15 pictures till they match. I tell people all the time do not alter your pictures. Your fooling yourself and collector's. Not right. You will get caught. I go thru eBay and I tell the sellers sorry there are no orange tokens. They make them better than they were i was glad to see your name up there. You will do fine. Thanks for writing Mike.

 

You might also consider looking at the coin catalog on numista.com

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Thankyou all for your comments. I have alot of experience writing and reviewing academic papers/reports and thus dealing with copyright and IP, although this is in a completely unrelated subject so much to learn!

The reference books I have typically use images from the authors own collection although more recent publications often include some images from both auction houses and the grading services, usually with a citation, so as suggested I will contact them regarding specific images. Having been spectacularly outbid at UK, US and European auctions over the last couple of months on a number of key coins for my own, not even remotely mainstream, collection of 'minors' the prospect of having the full set in several areas of interest has now evaporated. I expect a couple of these will be graded and appear at some point in Sets here so they did go to a good home:bigsmile:.

The recent publication of an excellent book on the Gold Coins of Sweden noted it was the 'First on the Subject in Nearly 40 Years' and just highlights the lack of available detailed information on many world coins. Coinweek link is below:-

https://coinweek.com/world-coins/new-book-on-gold-coins-of-sweden-first-on-the-subject-in-nearly-40-years/

For the more classical collecting areas (gold and crowns) the most recent publication may be from the 1960's/1970's as was the case in this instance with almost nothing on the minor denominations at all. It would be great to produce a book such as the one on the Gold Coins of Sweden however I expect I will start with a much much smaller and niche remit, such as a single denomination and monarch xD.

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