What are these lines caused by

[coinman_23885]

Sure they were -- or will be.... Just ask any Chinese fake seller for a quote and they'll make you some, or stay domestic and call the "Colorado Counterfeiter."

 

[coinman_23885]

Sir Messy - you have yet again proven your photographic superiority with that amazing GIF. Dang, that is good.

 

I agree. I wish he would share information about how he overlays the images and what specific transition speeds he uses, etc.

[robec1347]

Sir Messy - you have yet again proven your photographic superiority with that amazing GIF. Dang, that is good.

 

I agree. I wish he would share information about how he overlays the images and what specific transition speeds he uses, etc.

I think he has shared some of it. I'm not sure of his camera setting, but you just take several shots with the lights in a different position with each shot. John did a masterful job with this progression.

[messydesk]

6 shots. The first is with the lights at roughly 7 and 11, the last roughly 1 and 5, the others are in between. You need to hold the lights in your hand so you can easily move them without bumping the camera or coin, and in one hand, you will also need a remote trigger so you can trip the shutter while holding and moving the lights (looks clumsy, but works well). Take a test shot for exposure (holding the lights), then when you have that down, take all 6. If all goes well, the coin will be perfectly registered from shot to shot. If you bumped something, start over.

 

Open all pictures in your favorite editor capable of making GIF animations. You may need to adjust the exposure of one or more shots if the lighting got too bright or dim when compared with the rest of the shots. Then, to crop them all the same, stack all the pictures in layers, then crop at once. With the perfect registration mentioned above, this is easy. Next, duplicate layers 2 through 5 (of 6 total). You will have 10 layers. Now order them 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, and make the animation according to your photo editor's instructions. I use a delay of 0.1 seconds between frames except for after frame 1 and 6 (the ends of the sweep), where I use 0.2 seconds.

 

In order to keep the image size down, I save at 600x600 pixels. The increased depth/luster information from the animation, however, makes it sufficient. Due to the limitations of animated GIFs, coins with a lot of colors might not come out that well. You're limited to 256 colors per frame.

 

This works best on coins that have depth hard to capture with a single photo -- lustrous coins and coins with crazy die polishing like this one. This coin was raw when I shot it. Slabbed coins present an additional challenge of making sure you don't move the lights into a position where glare becomes an issue. Since you are showing the cartwheels, however, you can have the lights a little lower than you would for a single picture, as darker areas will become bright as you move the lights.

[robec1347]

Great tutorial John. Awesome job. The gif couldn't be smoother.

[njf]

I agree. Took a stab at it after I looked at your gif. Just mine I thought bumping the slab added artistic flair and the 56Mb file size ensures nobody will ever wait around to view the result. You couldnt be more right about the hand held light and reducing the image size

[robec1347]

I agree. Took a stab at it after I looked at your gif. Just mine I thought bumping the slab added artistic flair and the 56Mb file size ensures nobody will ever wait around to view the result. You couldnt be more right about the hand held light and reducing the image size

If you have Photoshop you can also save the file in a web friendly image file. This leave the file the same physical size (was 600x600 and after is still 600x600) But will reduce the file size from x amount of Mb to around 200 Kb or so. That can be adjusted.

[coinman_23885]

Thank you MessyDesk and Robec!

[njf]

I agree. Took a stab at it after I looked at your gif. Just mine I thought bumping the slab added artistic flair and the 56Mb file size ensures nobody will ever wait around to view the result. You couldnt be more right about the hand held light and reducing the image size

If you have Photoshop you can also save the file in a web friendly image file. This leave the file the same physical size (was 600x600 and after is still 600x600) But will reduce the file size from x amount of Mb to around 200 Kb or so. That can be adjusted.

 

Ill have to look at that. I dont have PS, just paint.net. I try to borrow as little software and movies as I can these days.

[RWB]

Moving the lights does not distort the coin the way tilting the coin does.

[CaptHenway]

100

[RWB]

101 - a new Century

[rrantique]

Great tutorial John. Awesome job. The gif couldn't be smoother.

 

+1 (thumbs u

[No+4Me]

Regarding lines on devices:

 

In the large majority of cases, they were quite faint. And when I have seen them on the devices, I don't recall them also being present in areas leading up to the devices.

 

Concentric lines do show up in the recesses of the wings of the eagle on the Morgan dollar reverse quite often, while the fields are typically without these lines.

 

Alos, I was attributing a pile of Peace dollars last night and ran across 1927-S VAM 1H, which has polishing lines above and on Liberty's hair.

 

This is also present in many of the Lincoln proofs from the 1936-42 era.

 

 

Question: these lines on the deeper recesses of the Lincoln proof appear arcuate and somewhat concentric. Could this be the vestige of the stylus of the reducing lathe when the master hub was created?

[WoodenJefferson]

The lines are a vestige of something circular with the focal point on Abe's mandible. It could very well be what you mention, but it could also be something that was spun to clean up the recess devices of the die.

[robec1347]

I've seen these more on the 1936-42 series of proof Lincoln's than any other.

[No+4Me]

Now that's very interesting. I wonder if the person operating the reducing lathe, in the interest of expediency, had his own approach to setting the device, or the size of the stylus, that produced these lines? Fun to speculate.

[e1cnr]

 

 

I suspect on coins that have parallel lines (like this cent from 4 - 10 o'clock) that show in both the fields and some high spots of devices are left over from the rollers in planchet production that the striking did not remove.

 

 

The early 50's also had some CAM/DCAM that show lots of die polish lines mainly in the devices, as an effort to ?make/restore? the frosted devices.

[coinman_23885]

Regarding lines on devices:

 

In the large majority of cases, they were quite faint. And when I have seen them on the devices, I don't recall them also being present in areas leading up to the devices.

 

Concentric lines do show up in the recesses of the wings of the eagle on the Morgan dollar reverse quite often, while the fields are typically without these lines.

 

Alos, I was attributing a pile of Peace dollars last night and ran across 1927-S VAM 1H, which has polishing lines above and on Liberty's hair.

 

This is also present in many of the Lincoln proofs from the 1936-42 era.

 

 

Question: these lines on the deeper recesses of the Lincoln proof appear arcuate and somewhat concentric. Could this be the vestige of the stylus of the reducing lathe when the master hub was created?

 

If it was, the same pattern would appear on pretty much the entire mintage or at least the vast majority (if you allow the marks to wear away or be polished away as the die ages), would it not? I don't think this same pattern is present on all of them, although a number of them have lines (that I would describe as die polish lines). And with the exception of the 1942, these tend to have small mintages.

 

[coinman_23885]

The early 50's also had some CAM/DCAM that show lots of die polish lines mainly in the devices, as an effort to ?make/restore? the frosted devices.

 

Yes, but this method was not used on the proof coinage of the 1930s and 1940s. The dies were, however, heavily polished and it is not uncommon for the coins to lack some of the finer details in the devices presumably due to the polishing.

[Legend13-migration]

These are somewhat amusingly called "Die Polish" lines, as they sometimes have the exact opposite effect on the coin, causing surface roughness. They are important die markers for several reasons: First, you can see it without a loop or magnification, and: Second, it is frequently associated with some sort of die error or variety that the mint is attempting to fix. I love these die polish coins, as each one is it's own little piece of artwork, different from most others. It's fun to find subsequent examples which also have actual polishing, making the coin shiny, along with the ragged marks like this one. Sometimes, especially with the nickels and quarters, there will also be die flow patterns, which accentuate the polishing, making the coin a very interesting piece. A check on many Lincoln Cent LDS on Coppercoins shows how much variety there is in this polishing, and confirms the relation to die errors and varieties. They sometimes are annotated as die markers themselves for certain coins, so keep your eye out for them They are fun to find in Gem BU, and sometimes lead to other discoveries.

[Hack]

Below is a photo of a Gem MS 65 1881 S with die polish lines on the left field of the coin. These lines are not on any raised surface of the coin and all go in the same direction. The lines are visible to the eye, but the coin has to be at a certain angle to view the lines. One thing that is interesting the lines are inside the hole of the letter P, but not on the raised surface of the letter that can be viewed with a loupe. I was going to sell the coin, but after reading the thread, I am going to hang onto the coin. I could only get the lines to show up on the top of the coin with a photo.

[RWB]

The field is the highest area of a die. The center of the P is part of the field. That is where the press room foreman or the die sinkers do nearly all of their repair work.