rasiel

It's a great strategy if you don't actually want to win them but if you do, ok, cool! If I wait til the last minute it's on (and then buyer's regret ensues) Rasiel

I have bids going well into the five figures but (realistically) don't expect to win anything. For example, these guys are smoking crack if they think that little Constantine XI is overpriced at the opening bid of 6k. I'd be surprised if it goes under 20! Rasiel

I don't even own a Nero. Y'all's rich folk! Rasiel

Funny how these things go! At one point a couple years back I was wrestling with whether or not I should get one of these for engraving metal. CO2 lasers you can get off Amazon pretty cheaply but are finicky and don't do a great job (or maybe not at all when it comes to metal) but the cheapest fiber lasers ran nearly 5k. In the end I decided not to and just outsourced the job and glad I didn't but the nerd in me still wishes I had one to fart around with 😅 Rasiel

Oh this was ten years ago. All that stock photo portfolio gets turned over frequently. I'm sure it can be retrieved from web archive. Here's a couple

Beautiful, top end work! Hats off. You should get an award for that last one. I did some shots for JM Bullion a few years ago. Big chunky bars. Not fun for me but it was sobering to hold six or seven figures in one hand 😅 Rasiel

Anatomy of poor technique Here's a coin I've shot twice, and twice failed. It's nothing to do with it being gold. The main problem is sub-optimal lighting. When you look at any gold or no toning silver coin look at the darkest and lightest areas. A successful shot should still have details at both extremes. In the top photo not only do I have areas that lose some detail but overall the fields are flat and unevenly lit (though the flan is a bit wavy to be fair). Moreover, in my excitement at getting a prized entry I've rushed it to the photo station before taking a minute to clean some lint that was clinging on. In the bottom photo I've improved the evenness of the lighting on the fields but I've blown the highlights again and made the dark ones darker still. It's also a touch out of focus. And there's still a bit of lint. This aureus deserves better! I'll have to take it in for a third attempt. Luckily, for me at least, getting quality shots is part of the fun of collecting and handling them for the photo sessions is after all an opportunity to you know, be with them again! Rasiel

Man, that's a hell of a coin. Wish I had it for just a couple minutes to do it justice! You can't even be bothered to take it out of the plastic 😅

Hell of a shot! (and a rare opportunity too) Rasiel

Here ya go!

And this is Magnentius as a sofa (wouldn't fit into previous message). Anyway, where'd she come from? This is just weird. I do think it's a killer sofa for what it's worth 😅 Well, that's enough silliness for today :- ) Rasiel

Just messing around with Photoshop tonight and I thought... what if I asked its AI to make fuller scenes based on the portraits? I started with this Licinius II and a few seconds later it came up with Ah, cool he's, uhh... running into battle. Let's clean this up and zoom out a bit Whooaaa!! Licinius' kid has horse DNA. He turned into a minotaur with a serious case of folliculitis. Better get that looked at. Let's switch tracks. How about my Julia Maesa denarius? What does she inspire? LOL! While I empathize with the scene of Maesa in a conga line I think it's a bit unseemly for an empress, no? Let's try again Ah, heh, yeah, I can see how she has that Victorian look. Give me more! This is pretty cool actually. To me it recalls maybe a Whistler painting leaning into surrealism. Finally, let's take a look at my solidus of Magnentius. What do you see here, Photoshop? Haha! Well, to be honest he does have a somewhat saintly look about him. Ok Photoshop, run with this. Dial it up a notch! Whoaaaaaaaaa!! Photoshop went too far. That's turning the dial to 11! I don't think I can look at my Maggie the same way again LOL Turn him into a sofa Photoshop. Yes, a sofa.

Thank you all for the kudos! Donna: no, as of now no pre-2000 eBay records. In fact, the earliest ones are from 2008 😞 I can buy the data from eBay but last time I checked it was extortionate

No sir :'-( Sorry. However, even back when the last records were being added I was already struggling to add filters effective in stopping the fakes and low value dregs. Three years later and it's at least three times worse. If I restart I might have to do something drastic like cherrypick the handful of good accounts still selling. It really can't be automated at this point without a lot of constant pruning.

No, actually the opposite: ACSearch, CoinArchives and Coryssa largely overlap for auction house sales for the period 2000-2020. There's basically zero after 2020 on my site so you'll need to use the others for recently closed auctions until I can catch up. On the other hand, Coryssa is as far as I know the only site to have a significant amount of pre-2000 lots. ExNumis.com has a large database but is (I think) only for internal use. Rasiel