Nerosmyfavorite68

It's kind of strange that postal packages from Dubai would generally be swifter than from Europe, which is closer (Numiscorner/France is the only one which was faster).

Although I'll be careful to avoid the orange stuff (although most of the orangies are from periods which I don't collect), I'm no longer so reticent to order from Zurquieh.  There were some coins here and there which didn't seem quite right, which I will avoid, but as long as I'm prudent, I don't think I'll have a big problem.

Wow, Zurquieh was actually quite fast - about a week and a half - Dubai to the USA.  Shipping was 5 dollars and some change.

The only aggravating part was that the coins were in paper envelopes (I'm out of flips) and no ID tags.

The main order was a denarius, but I ordered a 6 buck widow's mite, just to say I have one.  For six bucks, it really isn't bad.

While my photos aren't great, the NGC ones aren't phenomenal either.  They also have a Byzantine coin for the reverse of the coin! Theirs is clearer, but makes the coin look ten times worse than it does in person.

Their photo does better show the pock-marking on the face of the portrait.  Peering in through the slab, there's wear to the eagle and pock-marking on the face. 

I think this is only my second or third Philip II. 

However, it was still a very thoughtful gift; one within my interests.  The local coin store only has a small offering of ancients.  They're sometimes slabbed, sometimes not.

Caracalla (198-217). Cilicia, Tarsus. Æ (35mm, 13.29g, 6h). Laureate and cuirassed bust r., slight drapery. R/ Emperor standing l., togate, sacrificing over altar. Cf. SNG BnF 1527-8 (for rev. type)

NEXT; a Severan era As (or larger sized) provincial AE from the Balkans.

Lesbos, Unattributed early mint, c. 500-450 BC. BI 1_12 Stater VG 9mm 0.63g

NEXT: a pre-250 AD AE, 34mm or larger.

I'd like to see some how-tos of coin photography (I've bookmarked some good recent ones) and post photography editing.  Some step by steps, especially of the latter (such as how do we separate the coin only), would be great. Also; tips on where to buy ready-made (or at least what brand it is) stands and photographic supplies, for those who aren't good at DIY.

Also how-to's on some various aspects of cleaning.

This coin was a most thoughtful present. Unfortunately it's entombed, but I have no experience in freeing tombs.  I'd personally grade it VF.

It's very nice for a first coin.

By the way the callers were talking on WFAN, I had assumed the Rangers had lost the Stanley Cup. The thread kind of took me by surprise.

May your team win!

That's a very cool addition!  Congratulations!

June's the month where I get clobbered by bills.  I plan to look into becoming a supporter soon afterwards.

The old place hit a new low; aggressively defending dangerously slow highway drivers (the 40 mph kind), lol.  I find myself logging in less and less there.  The ancient section is pretty much a ghost town now.

36 minutes ago, DANTE said:

I guess I'm a hybrid: eclectic enough to be interested in whatever tickles my esthetic and historical fancy, yet focused enough to have some area's that I frequently return to. So I do a lot of jumping around between different areas and era's: Greek, Aexander and Diadochi and satrapies, Roman before 211 BC.  What I buy depends mostly on a combination of budget, availability and mood. (Sadly, budget is the limiting factor here: my virtual wishlist is almost endless!😊)

 

I'm pretty similar, especially the blue line, although I do have some specialties/favorites

Hellenistic Tetradrachms (esp. the large ones)

1st century Sestertii

Roman Egypt Drachms

Sestertii of 249-294.

nice patinas (any AE)

Byzantine; Justinian Year 12-early 700s.

Sassanian AR

Most of my buys are scoped out and bookmarked beforehand.  Some are opportunistic. 

I bookmarked this thread for future reference.  There's a lot of good ideas.

It would be a good idea to also have a step-by-step tutorial thread for beginners (with lots of illustrations), whether it be a link to one in CT or a fresh, new thread.  Some Photoshop/PSP/GIMP tricks would also be good. 

Per each coin, what's the average time that it takes to make a decent image? (After the photograph is taken).

Although I've cut back on my workload my old time radio hobby takes up an incredible amount of time.  I'm usually restoring shows 7 days a week.  I could spare maybe 2 or 3 hours over a quiet weekend for photography.

Very nice!  I'm missing that type in my collection.

You did it very well!  I'd always have bits of the original adhering to it when I tried.

I should also experiment to see if the newer Paint Shop Pro has a smart lasso.

That image was done with the same crappy lighting that I use for the record labels.  The images have been slowly but consistently improving. They still have a lot of room for improvement.  The best results have been on silver, second gold, with AE's having a lot of problems.  The lighting would have to be revamped for the coin setup.

And then there's the problem of where to put the coin setup.

Hipshot Photography (and anybody), the Photoshop I have is CS5 (which also has the CS5 master collection - AfterEffects, etc.), and I only have a novice understanding of it and zero knowledge of AfterEffects.  I also have a new Jasc Paint Shop Pro and GIMP, although I never use the latter.  Which would be better for manipulating my coin images?  I've shown this on CT before and people have chimed in on there. 

I've always had trouble smoothly removing the coins from the original background.  Here's one of my better inept fairly recent attempts at coin photography (hand-held).  Yes, I realize the rose is upside down.  No attempt was made to remove the original background. I just cropped them and plopped them into a large canvas and cropped the end results.

Even this image probably took 30-45 minutes to cobble together, not counting the time to photograph it. Some find coin photography relaxing. I find it quite stressful and aggravating.  If it came with a high-res dealer photo, I'd never bother to do it in the first place.  Just being honest.  Perhaps if I became semi-competent at it, it wouldn't be as aggravating.

I like to incorporate the original tag into the photo. The coin info's already baked in that way and I can better remember who it came from.

I've saved the best ideas I've liked from a previous similar CT thread. 

I would like something out of the box that I can use for the facing-down camera stand; I don't want to bother my neighbor with building something. 

My camera; a 2012-vintage Sony alpha 77.  I'd have to look up what the lens is.  I stupidly didn't do enough research when the camera salesman sold me the camera (I did research on WHAT type of camera, I just didn't on what lens - I though the Carl Zeiss lens on my previous camera was detachable) sold me a useless telephoto lens.  The result; most images were crap.  A few years later I went on a camera forum and they directed me to a much faster Tamron lens (not a macro lens).

Other than my Note 20, I have no other camera.  I'd like to get something out of the box which doesn't cost a ton of money (up to $200-ish is ok) for the stand.

A new camera would be nice, but inflation has really started to hurt and I just can't justify spending that money.  I'm sure the new cameras take better images, but the ones in the 700-1000 range are still 24 MP, all those years later.  My note 20 is 108 mp.

The camera's used to take record label photos for my OTR hobby (I use  the multi-frame noise reduction mode on that), which enables decent hand-held photos (jpg only, unfortunately).  Or, the note 20 takes pretty decent pics.  I don't need an artistic masterpiece for those.  Just decent.  They're used for research.

I didn't do much on this, other than auto color in photoshop.  I'd prefer to work from RAW, but I couldn't get consistent sharp enough photos from regular hand-held photography. ABC labels are often tough because they were once white/cream, but somehow decay - probably the glue, often becoming very dark. This was a Sony one.

To sum up, I need a stand out of the box (I'm inept at making things) which isn't hideously expensive, I need the stand to allow the camera to be readily detached since I only have one camera.  I also need a light. I have an enormous LED ring light, but that's too big. I've noted down the lights which Severus Alexander and others suggested on CT.  I also need something to place the coin on.

Some have suggested photographing coins outside for light but I've noticed the tendency for small coins to spurt out of my hand when I wear gloves.  Nothing has come to disaster yet on the soft carpet, thank goodness. It'd have to be indoor.

Life and my OTR hobby leave me pretty little time to photograph stuff.  My inept attempts so far take a ton of time to cobble together in photoshop.  I also don't like to handle my coins, especially the AE, so my hands have to be bone dry, even with gloves, which means there's pretty few windows for photographing.  A long ago BD outbreak spooked me.

I also need a coin scale and something to measure the unphotographed coins with (for those which don't have that info already). 

Well, I do still have the 2003 vintage Sony 8 MP with the Carl Zeiss lens, but although it still works, it was always crap for taking label pics and coin pics.

My favorite mints are Lugdunum and Perinthus/the Balkan mint.  Most of my Neros are unphotographed.  I have a pretty nice entombed Alexandrian Tet, a birthday present.

Here's a couple of the more presentable ones with a dealer photo.

NERO AE dupondius. IMP NERO CAESAR AVG P MAX TR P P P, laureate head left. Reverse - SECVRITAS AVGVSTI, Securitas seated right, altar at feet, SC in exergue. RIC 519, RCV 1968

NERO AE orichalcum sestertius. Struck at Lugdunum, 65 AD. NERO CLAVD CAESAR AVG GER P M TR IMP P P, laureate head right, globe at point of bust. Reverse - Roma seated left on cuirass & shields, S C at sides, ROMA in exergue. 36mm, 24.4g.

Like my moniker says, Nero's my favorite of Julio-Claudian cionage.

My journey started when I was around 8.  I bought two AE's from a junk box from a then-local coin store.  One's a Macedonian shield small AE, the other is more of a mystery.  Perhaps an As of Nero?  It will have to remain a mystery until my coin photography improves.

One has to fast-forward to about 1993.  My friend and I would frequent a decrepit flea market and one dealer had some ancients.  The first buy from him was a very pitted Trebonianus Gallus Antioch Ant.  My dad bought me some more coins from the local coin store and the hobby stuck.

I actually took the plunge and ordered some coins from one of the orange AE dealers. This one is from the glitzy city in the desert, not the Canadian one.  This dealer actually has quite a few decent deals on certain numimatic genres.  One or two of the unimportant throw-in AE's may or may not have a fake patina, but for $6-9, one can't squawk.  It didn't seem to be the outrageous orange kind of patina.

The main coin is high grade (aXF) by wear, but is crystalized and chipping on certain spots on the reverse.

I'll just play on the safe side and assume about a month for arrival.

I had been planning on ordering Germanicus.  Oh well.  Maybe next order.

OCTAVIAN AE 'sestertius/heavy dupondius'. Southern Italian mint, 38 BC. CAESAR DIVI F, bare & slightly bearded head right, no star in field. Reverse - DIVOS IVLIVS, two lines within wreath. RPC 621, RCV 1569/1570. 30mm, 14.9g.

Attribution: RPC 2233
Date: 25 BC
Obverse: AVGVSTVS, Bust right within border of dots
Reverse: CA within circle in wreath, all within border of dots
Size: 34.58 mm
Weight: 18.6 grams

Title: Octavian, as Sole Imperator (31-27 BC). AR Denarius / Actian Arch
Attribution: RIC I 267 Uncertain Italian mint
Date: 30-29 BC
Obverse: Anipigraphic, bare head of Octavian right
Reverse: Quadriga, facing, set atop triumphal arch (the Actian Arch) with architrave inscribed with IMP CAESAR
Size: 18.09mm
Weight: 2.63 grams

Marcus Junius Brutus

Denarius 42 BC, Military mint. 2,97 g. Laureate head of Apollo right LEG COSTA / IMP BRVTVS Trophy with shield and spears. Cr.506/2; Syd.1287, fine to very fine, filled hole

The Sear books are great, especially for the many illustrations.  I have every one, save for 4, which seems to be the scarce/rare one.

The one by Van Meter is a bargain.  Forum has it, I believe, and is/was $35.  That was my first real reference, and is a nice beginner's book.

I don't know if the electronic version of ERIC is still up, or if it's still free.  It was some years back.

This is a cool thread.  How early is the cutoff for late? 

I'd like to collect the larger coins of this period, but I don't know how to search for them.  Is there a search term that would yield many results?  For instance, Varb* or Moush* yields a lot of balkan AE.

Yeah, but look at the Sear plate 40 nummi. It's not much better.  Those are unobtanium.

My mom called Byzantine AE 'slag heaps' when I started collecting .

Here's my favorite AE of the year: already posted in the old place:

It's no Nero Sestertius, but it's an attractive coin.

Justinian I (527-565). Æ 40 Nummi (37mm, 20.77g, 6h). Theoupolis (Antioch), year 20 (546/7). Facing helmed and cuirassed bust, holding globus cruiciger. R/ Large M; cross above, date across field; A/9HЧΠ. MIBE 145a; DOC 217; Sear 220.

These are more slag heap territory, but the Justinian II is average for the type, and so is the Justinian Ravenna.

My worst slag heaps aren't photographed, although they're about like this or better.