Of course I overbid on this one, but boy was it worth it! Such a pretty golden hue! (And a hilarious little teenage moustache on Gordian III) Sharing for your enjoyment :)
Hi guys, I’m looking for some helpful tips on coin photography. I would like to take some more realistic photo’s of my coins, the auction sites typically seem to overexpose coins which removes details, and I like highly detailed images of my coins! I have been playing around with a decent copy stand, focusing rail and a 50mm macro objective and some directional lighting, but am struggling with some of the aspects here, so advice is highly appreciated. A couple of specific issues are:
- Too much emphasis on small scratches in the fields detracting from readability of the text, very obvious for gold and silver coins
- Reflectivity of coins causes very shiny coins to appear darker in the photos. Especially some high grade silver coins I own almost look like they are bronzes! Also gold coins are very shiny sometimes making them look more dull in the picture
- Written text on the coins is much less readable in the photo than on the coins. Is this a lighting/contrast issue?
A few example photos: a late roman bronze, much easier to read in hand, and a very shiny gold coin, and a shiny and very decent athenian owl. Please let me know your thoughts!
I spotted a coin lot a while ago, and noticed that this coin, which was marked as a denarius, certainly was different, so out of curiosity I bought the lot. After some mild cleaning: a lovely pseudo argenteus from Treveri!
Hi all! I received this Sestertius as part of an uncleaned ancient coin lot. It is very corroded but I can make out the precise type based on some of the lettering that is visible. It was by no means an expensive coin, so I thought I’d give it a go and try and clean it myself. It seems, however, that there are some seriously hard crystallized encrustations I cannot mechanically remove on especially the reverse, and the patina seems to be broken all around the edges. What do you think should be the best way of moving forward cleaning this coin? It has been soaking in distilled water now for ages, so that is not sufficient…