I made a tier ranking of the best (and worst) coin photography amongst some of the major ancient coin auction houses...

[Restitutor]

15 hours ago, Curtisimo said:

I only meant it in jest. I like Frank’s old school approach to all things coins. If Frank changed his photo set up it would probably bum me out. I remember being kinda bummed when he started hosting his auctions on biddr. I still email him my bids.

Besides... his photos get the point across well enough once you get used to them. Examples of his photos and mine below.

 

If this coin was up for auction I'd probably bid at least 2.5x for the coin in the second picture compared to the first. Crazy to think it's the same coin. 

[Heliodromus]

I was just searching Coin Archives and realized this exact same coin kept popping up, so thought it would be interesting to compare photos and prices. All prices include buyers fees, and have been converted to dollars using exchange rates in effect at time of sale.

I'm not sure how much photography (vs venue, luck) affected prices here, but may have been part of it. In particular going unsold at $256 with a dark (probably fairly true to life) photo, vs selling at $758 with a "glamour photo". I was bitten once as a beginning collector by a CGB photo that made a coin look way better than in hand.

Incidentally, the bust type is unlisted for this issue/mint, which is why the price is so high for an otherwise common type.

[HipShot Photography]

On 6/4/2022 at 11:44 PM, dougsmit said:

Seriously, a major skill everyone needs to develop is to learn how to 'read' the photos on any site so you can make an educated guess as to what the coin actually will look like.  

It's unfortunate you need to learn how to read a photo because someone else didn't bother to learn how to take a decent picture. Such is life, I suppose.