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PA Coin Collector

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Everything posted by PA Coin Collector

  1. Thank you to both @JKK and @gmarguli for your exceptional help in identifying this coin. Phenomenal.
  2. Also, if there are any detail zoom photos needed, I can accommodate easily. The files I am working with on my end are roughly 20 times larger than what I can upload to the site, so I have a whole lot of room left to zoom.
  3. I’m digging around some now that I have such excellent information to work with. It looks like the East India Company may have been minting these in the name of Shah Alam II. At least based on a few coins I found that have essentially the same details, but are much lighter (IE 3-4g). I’m way over my head with all of this though so I’m going to sit down and let the people who know what’s going on decide. It certainly is interesting though. Thank you everyone.
  4. Thank you for the response and info @JKK. Far more precise than I was even beginning to hope for. Here are the needed numbers: Weight: 14.29-14.30gr (my scale couldn’t quite decide about that 0.01g). Diameter is also in flux since the coin is misshapen. At narrowest points its 23mm~ and at widest it’s 26mm~ (don’t have calipers yet, so going off a metric ruler).
  5. Hi all- I’ve been doing the old routine I’m sure everyone has heard 10,000 times of going through a box of coins I received through the family grapevine. Most of them I have been able to figure out at least what they are, even if my grading skills are still novice at best. However, this one is eluding me. My Arabic has apparently degraded *far* more than I thought in the past twenty years, and all I can figure out is the date. Which is AH1190 (aka 1776 in the western calendar). At least that’s my understanding. Starting out will be (what I think is the correct order) of Obverse and Reverse with mono directional ambient lighting (coming in at 45 degrees) white balanced to be as accurate as possible with identical settings on each side. Then there will be, once again, Obv/Rev but with bidirectional lighting from 45 degrees and 225 degrees, again balanced on screen to be as accurate as possible with those lighting elements in person. I can measure the coin and weigh it if necessary, but I’m primarily looking for a rough ID on this fellow. I know it’s an obscure ask and I appreciate any responses and info.
  6. I actually don’t believe in a proper contrasting color. When done correctly, it’s immaterial. The true color of the coin will be what comes through. That being said, I will say that I prefer a black background overall, as much as it might be seen. I think aesthetically it offsets *most* coins to their most accurate. Plus it has a significantly reduced chance of reflected glare. Obviously it depends if you are shooting with raw coins, cardboard 2x2s (predominantly white surrounding), or slabs. The point is, always, to make things as accurate and detailed as possible.
  7. I’ll echo the other votes for a unique short set. Unless the Mint decides to extend this for some unknown and unexpected reason. And, even then, I would just figure they’d be their own thing. Obviously the defunct privy marks aren’t anything more than show. And, quite frankly, until I can go down to the bank and ask for 2021-20?? Silver Dollars, they certainly shouldn’t be part of the circulating set.
  8. Might as well make this my first post. My first love was/is photography, so I am very picky about this topic. Unless you’re going to dump a whole ton of money into your camera setup, you’re going to make sacrifices one way or the other. As far as the photography side, since I’m pretty useless RE scopes, to me it’s all about white balance and lens. A decent macro setup and a very rudimentary understanding of LR will get you good coin photos with practice. The main thing is calibrating the color on whatever screen you’re using. That way you know what you’re seeing, on your screen, is accurate. Does that mean that if someone else is viewing it with a warmer or cooler temperature setting will see it exactly the same way? No. But at least you’ll know that a properly calibrated screen will be projecting it the way you intended. I’m a mildly unusual case since, as I said, I’m primarily a photographer. I’m using a 61mp camera with a 90mm dedicated macro, tripod, and all the bells and whistles. But I can get outrageously accurate and detailed photos, even when exported as the (massively) smaller JPEGs for general sharing. To put it in perspective, my basic RAW file for one side of a coin is 120~MB. Once exported it’s closer to 7MB. Still a frankly huge file in JPEG world, but nothing compared to what I see on my screen in native format. In RAW I can get just about as close, or closer, in on a coin surface as I could see with a 20x loupe, so at least a factor of 4 higher than the standard. But, like I said, it’s all about the white balance (aka color balance). I can make a coin shine like the sun or I can make it dull as dirt. The goal, if one is being an honest and upstanding member of the community, is of course to make it look as close as humanly possible to the coin as it sits in your vision in person. Which sounds a lot more complicated than it is. Just adjust the balance in any basic editing program to have the screen reflect what your eye sees in person. Boom. 95% of the way to high quality and reputable coin photography. Otherwise it’s just increasing the detail through pixel density and lens quality. I prefer ambient light as a base and just make the shutter as long as it takes to properly expose a coin side. Sometimes it’s 15-20 seconds. But I find that the color is most accurate that way without having to correct for artificial lighting. In any case, this was way longer and more detailed than I intended and probably way off what OP’s original question was. But I fully believe high quality coin photography is a massive boon to everyone involved. A scan is nice, but a properly balanced incredibly high quality photo does everyone a load of good, especially when we know how it was graded. Every scratch, dent, discoloration, scuff, or whatever needs to be documented so we know precisely what we’re dealing with.