declanwmagee

Yes - the camera is great: same one as yours but the camera is the easy bit: now I am playing with lighting, white balance, exposure, ISO and all that. Just changing one variable at a time for now to see what each one does. Already I can tell which were my early shots though. Bit short of genuine daylight where we are - in a bus under a railway viaduct in a deep valley. So I've bought a selection of different bulbs to try...that edge shot was with an angle poise over my shoulder and a headtorch on!

here's mine... definitely not a star of David...

I've bought quite a lot of stuff off him. I like him. I always knock half a grade or so off his, but to be honest, that's a lot less than I knock off some bigger players than him. His photos are different to most peoples - he tends to stand his coins up and photograph them vertically, which is probably how he has overcome camera shake. Getting the colour right, especially under artificial lighting is an absolute minefield as I'm discovering with my new camera, so I'd be a bit forgiving on that one. As always, look at the coin and ignore the grade given.

I like Peck for all the little footnotes and factlets he puts in. I wouldn't have known about the 1918KN Bird's foot flaw without my Peck, and that knowledge has made me a good £30 in the last couple of months. A lot of those go unnoticed on fleabay. In fact, a good next book we could do with would be if someone could collate all the facts and footnotes together. CoinCraft used to put loads in their catalogue, as I recall. Combine that with information from the Royal Mint Annual reports and I'm sure there are more primary sources out there too, and I'd buy it.

Peck on eBay

Is that a fact John? I only have one 1845 Crown, but I thought it was star stops, but then I've never seen a cinquefoil. Anyone fancy doing some edge photos? I'll have a go in the daylight tomorrow...

Scanner does the trick quick and easy Gareth, and you can do a batch at a time...

I remember that message very well David. lol Ah, The Acorn Archimedes, that was a very good computer, advanced for it's time I always thought. It was way out of my (Or should I say my Parents) price range. I was very happy with my second hand Commodore 64. lol 100mb was an incredible amount for it's day. Oh how quickly times change. lol My 286 had a 32Mb C: drive. Imagine my delight when I typed D: at the DOS prompt instead of C: one day, and found I had another partition of 8 whole Mb, and it was actually a Seagate 40Mb drive!

...or the old banking families buying the US in 1913. Google "Jekyll Island" for details...

yours is better than theirs though, Mike!

Good choice, hello17. Not too many dates, some common, some trickier and lots of low grade examples around. High grades are not easy, so you won't complete it too quick.

Nor me - we did have two half sovereigns but sold them 18 months ago to put a floor in our bus. We didn't think it could go over $850/oz....

Quite agree Dave. I've just managed to fill my last George V gap which has been yawning at me for years: 1917 sixpence. It only cost me a tenner, and I'd have paid double that just because it's the first one I've come across since I got serious. It's only a VF, but I don't care, even though I usually consider myself to be a grade fascist.

ah but aren't they lovely holes...feel the quality

well that's a pretty good start - you can go a long way with them 3. Your life will never be the same again. Every bill you get from some nonsense like the gas board, you'll be thinking "ooh the coins I could buy with that".

Good luck Boomstick! It never stops you know, once you get the bug

Blimey. Don't we all live in different worlds!

ah yes, Richparfishing, used to be called. He bought it for £50 odd not long ago... http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rt=nc&nma=true&item=200534014259 either he can't take photos for toffee or he's done something to it. Be interesting to see what it goes for. Watch list!

did you get it Scott? bloody well spotted...

I have taken thousands of coin photographs with a Cannon 400D and Sigma DG Macro lens in conjunction with a stand/tripod, mostly in natural sunlight but I still have problems in a few areas; 1) Worn copper/bronze where the combination of tone/contour 'confuses' the camera and the results can frequently be disappointing. George V heads are a nightmare! 2) Any coin with mottled toning. 3) Highly polished proof coins where the reflection dazzles the camera. I have had some moderate success by using sunlight but shielding the coin with my hand. I doubt the experts do it this way though! This isn't cheap equipment, but I made the mistake of telling my son (who considers himself an expert) what I wanted and sending him out to get it without enquiring as to the likely cost. I dare say you could get equally good results with a cheaper camera, but I'm hoping this will last me out. Does take very good images of overdates though. thanks all - choosing the camera I anticipated to be the easy bit - so I have taken John & Huss's recommendation and ordered one. The fun starts when it gets here. As most of you know, we live in a bus, and this means that I can't have a permanent setup with tripods and the like. It also means direct sunlight is a bit of a scarce resource. I may even have to invest in an anglepoise lamp. Probably a useful thing to have anyway! At the moment, even in the daytime, I tend to use an LED headtorch when examining coins, but it's a very white light to be taking photographs with. I shall experiment, and I shall enjoy experimenting, and I shall let you know how it goes!

Chaps The time has come when I must seriously think about equipping myself to take proper photos of coins. I see too many coins that aren't as good as mine, going for more than I could get - and it's down to the scans. Even a better coin looks lifeless, flat, on a scanner - particularly high grade silver. I know diddley-squat about photography, so don't start talking f-stops please, but I'd be very interested to know what models of digital camera you've had success with. Then, once I've bought one, I'll be back to ask about lighting, angles and all that. thanks in advance Declan

fantastic, John! That's just the calibre of information I was after - you are a star. My ebay listings are now taken on a cheap as chips Canon Powershot A480 Declan. I bought it after a plug from Hus and find it okay. Lighting and focal distance don't seem to be a problem at all. It does have a tendancy to only partially focus on the coin for some strange reason, which sometimes leaves (usually the bottom) a small portion slightly fuzzy. I bought it from Argos online and it was only about £55 I think.

I was once! My Dad used to say if you're not a communist by the time you're 18, you've got no heart; if you're still a communist by the time you're 30, you've got no head. Now I'm just a good old fashioned conspiracy loon.

I'm not sure it was that the game was played badly by whoever was in Nos 10/11 at the time, more that the game is rigged and you can't win it, whether you're a Nation, a company, or an individual. You only win it if you're a lender. If 99.9% of all money is introduced by the creation of new debt, then where is the interest supposed to come from? You can't just go out and earn it - it's not there! Simple fix: you can't lend what you don't have. Banks threatening armageddon if they don't get bailed out doesn't wash with me. The average per capita income, globally, is £200. "Ooh I couldn't live on that". Course you could, and you would, it wouldn't mean you'd be poorer, just that your pounds would be bigger. Inflation isn't things getting more expensive, it's the currency getting smaller. Exactly who gains from the progressive shrinking of the currency anyway? These bubbles; housing, dot com, etc, are man-made phenomena, they aren't the weather, they are a strategy. Suck money up the pyramid by convincing ordinary people that there's money to be made in something, then when you've pushed your luck as much as you dare, dump it all and clear the table. Who is to say that precious metals won't be next? Hoard it, inflate the price, then cash in. So of course it's the little people that lose out - that's the whole idea! He who pays the piper calls the tune, and Osborne is just doing what he's told. If you're really running the show, you ain't on the telly. Sorry about the rant - I'm afraid once you see the game, you see it everywhere.

Blimey. Say what you like about the seller formerly known as "gg..something or other", but he does get 'em in. £411 with 4 days to go... Superb isn't it. I forecast near £2k. Tell you what, if I had the cash, I'd be in there saying, "come to Daddy" £1,561.11 with 3 days to go... Presumably the higher up the coinie pyramid you go, the less people are there, and the more chance there is that you lot will know who's likely to be bidding?