How To Photograph Ancient Coins

In an earlier post, I shared a video on how to photograph coins. Unfortunately, since ancient coins aren't perfectly circular, one cannot easily crop the coin from the background as shown in that video. This video is specifically geared towards photographing ancient coins where I demonstrate how to set up the camera to get the background nice and white without needing to crop out the background.

In case anyone is wondering, the coin in the video is a tetradrahm from Tyre of Demetrius II Nikator.

Shekel Of Tyre

This week, I purchased a Tetradrahm from the ancient Phoenician city of Tyre. It is basically a large, silver coin with a denomination of 4 drahms. Tetradrahms weight as much as an ancient unit of measure known as a shekel.

What made the Shekels minted in Tyre of great importance to the ancient world is the fact that they were purer in silver content than other coins of that era. Because of this fact, they became the coin of choice when trading with other nations and it essentially can be considered the first "Trade Dollar". Moreover, because of the purity and respect for the Shekels minted in Tyre, it became the coin of choice for paying the temple tax in Jerusalem so is of great religious significance. A didram, or half a shekel, covered the tax for one person whereas a full shekel covered the tax for two persons.

These shekels were minted for about a couple centuries with very little change in design. The following design I purchased was minted in regnal year 185 which corresponds to 128/127 BC. It bears the image of Demetrius II Nikator when Tyre was under subjugation to the Seleucid Empire. Following the assignation of Demetrius II Nikator, Tyre regained sovereignty.

Nevertheless, very little changed in the design of the Shekel after his death. The bust of Melqarth which replaced the bust of Demetrius II Nikator, which is shown below, looks very similar in style. Also, the date is shown to the left of the eagle on reverse, the right side of the coin. Once Tyre regained its sovereignty, it not only changed the bust on the obverse but also changed the location of the date from the right side of the reverse to the left side of the coin. The Melqarth Tetradrahms were minted in Tyre from 126 BC to 5 BC and later on in Jerusalem, although the Jerusalem Shekels lacked the quality that the Tyre mint produced.

The following are a couple bonus images for your enjoyment. These were taken in the 1990's when I visited Tyre. The first image is the large Arch and the second image is an ancient sidewalk. The street is to the right and to the left (not shown) is where the hippodrome of Tyre is located.

Arwad, Phoenicia Drahm

I recently was fortunate to win an ancient Phoenician coin from an online auction. The auction ended at 11:00 PM but I didn't want to sit there and stress over it so I upped my bid about 7 minutes before auctions end. I was fortunate to purchase it but one thing I noticed is that at it's price, the bid increments were $10 and I noticed that someone had put in 3 bids to up me to my maximum bid. A little shady but at least I won the auction, albeit by a spiteful bidder, or by the owner of the coin. Nevertheless, the coin arrived today and it looks better than the pictures.

It does have one issue though, it's in an NGC holder and not a PCGS holder. I find NGC holders too bulky as compared to the PCGS holders and less scratch resistant. Nevertheless, I know that this is a problem free coin since it has a bonafide grade rather than the holder merely authenticating it as a genuine coin. Moreover, the annoying mounts interfere with full enjoyment of the surface of the coin. I liked holder more when they were snug around the coin rather than suspended within the holder so one can see the edges. Who cares about the edges when the mounts interfere with taking a nice quality image of the coin.

Anyway, here is my Phoenician coin from the ancient city of Arwad, known as Aradus to the Greeks. It is a Drachm from the regnal year of 103 which translates to 157/156 BC. It harbors a bee on the obverse and a stag and palm tree on the reverse. The toning, along with the high relief, makes this coin a stunning example, albeit several examples can be found in higher grade.

The positioning in front of the lens of my camera, along with the concaveness of the reverse makes this coin appear a little darker on the reverse than the obverse. They were photographed at the same exposure but I chose not to adjust the exposures to make the surfaces of the coin look identical.

PVC Damaged Coins

Years ago I organized a bunch of worthless foreign coins into an album sorted by country. I didn't put all of the coins in 2 x 2 holders and instead, I cut a bunch of coin flips into two and put coins in them and then into the album. Needless to say, many coin dealers will put loose coins in a vinyl flip when one purchases them and I have noticed many also placed in the flips while in a dealer's inventory. It is a disgrace to the hobby when they use such flips that ruin rather than protect coins. Needless to say, Many of these worthless foreign coins became PVC damaged.

PVC is the component that makes the vinyl flips soft. Some flips are a little more rigid as they lack PVC and are safer to store coins in. Over time, a coin stored in a vinyl flip will develop an ugly green film, mainly on the high points of the coin where the most contact is made with the flip. The PVC will continue to eat away at the metal.

Coins with PVC damage on them will not be certified by PCGS or NGC. Acetone can remove the PVC but if the coin has been stored for a sufficient amount of time that the metal corrodes substantially then even acetone will not correct the damage and the coin will still not certify. Light PVC damage can be corrected by acetone and the coin can be fine.

Of course dealers being irresponsible by using PVC flips is not the only thing that I have seen them do that I would not advise. I was at a coin show once and saw a currency dealer who had plenty of high grade and expensive varieties of certified obsolete notes. He was using binder clips to mount them on a display board so that people can look at them. Now he's damaged the currency. Even though they were certified, the currency holders are not thick and durable like the coin holders so he would put dents in both the holders and the notes.

I would advise people to ask the dealers why they use vinyl flips or do something irresponsible with the money they sell. If they don't take good care of numismatic items while they are in their possession then why would one want to purchase the item, knowing that they could be damaged?

Nevertheless, I filled a glass container with the damaged coins and poured acetone on them. I then removed them and set them on a microfiber cloth while the acetone rapidly evaporated. Since I put all the coins in the container, there remains some PVC damage on some of the coins as they didn't sit long enough in the acetone. These will have to be re-acetoned. The nice thing about doing so was that the acetone turned a nice blue which resembled copper sulfate in solution.

Franklin Half - Hanger Variety

I was just sorting through some of my coins and I have 1853-S and 1953-D Franklin Halves, both certified by PCGS. The 1953-S is graded an MS-65 while the 1953-D is graded an MS-63. Visually, the 1953-D looks like a higher grade coin than does the 1953-S.

I pulled my loop to magnify the surface of the coins to see why the 1953-D was graded lower than the 1953-S even though to the naked eye, it appears to be a nicer coin. While analyzing them to make sure the 1953-D had more than the 1953-S due to the lower grade, based on how scuffed up it is under magnification I noticed something interesting.

My 1953-D Franklin, PCGS MS-63FBL has a little raised metal just below the nostril. Therefore I have dubbed this die variety the "Hanger". It appears as though Ben Franklin has a booger dangling. I'm sure it's not a nose hair due to its width relative to the size of the nose, unless it's a booger coated nostril hair.

1883 CC Morgan Dollar

In the mid to late 1990's, when I was still a novice collector, I was at the annual NCNA coin show which was in Greensboro at the time. Back then I bought inexpensive Silver Dollars, which were as low as $7 at the time. I wanted to purchase a nicer coin and I looked at an 1884-CC PCGS MS-64. It was $54 and I didn't purchase it to see if I could find one at a better price. Now I wish I had bought it. Instead I ended up purchasing an uncertified 1883-CC that a dealer had in a coin album. I plan to send it off to PCGS soon but I believe it will grade an MS62. Ignorance is not bliss.

Under magnification, I noticed a die crack along the upper portion of the letters in the reverse and a little doubling. I was intrigued, and took it to Mr. Greene at A Silver Shop. The coin shop is no longer in business as Mr. Greene sold it when he retired and it eventually closed. Mr. Greene had a box of uncirculated 1883-CC Morgans and many of them had die cracks, although not as heavy as mine and mine still needs magnification to observe.

Examining the coin the other day, I identified it to be a VAM 3a die variety. Doubling can be seen on several of the letters, of which the S in States is shown below. Also there is what appears to be an Adam's Apple protruding from lady liberty's neck. This is supposed to be a die clash impression of an N. While it looks like an N I am not sure how a die clash from a reverse die would have made the N impression, given it's location and being a capital N and not a lower case n, as seen in "In God We Trust" on the reverse. 

A Coin With Cooties

A few days ago I began looking at some of my Morgans to determine if I can identify different die varieties. I went to VamWorld and analyzed different die varieties on there and compared them to the individual coins in my collection. In the process, I discovered that cooties are not limited to girls. Coins can carry them as well.

On the obverse of some Morgan dollars there exists what appears like a hairline twirling on the face of Liberty's bust near the junction of the cheek and neck. While not a rare VAM variety, I found it interesting. I have two 1878-S PCGS MS64 Morgans and one of them has cooties and the other one doesn't. Using my cheap 30x 21mm Jeweler's Loupe and my iPhone 5s I managed to take some photos of the cootie, also known as cottie, on the infected coin without having to pull out my Canon 60D and take macro photos of the surface.

One thing to note when inspecting coins for die varieties is that it is a tedious job and can produce a lot of eye strain. I would recommend examining a few coins at a time and then relaxing for a few minutes, or taking high resolution images of the coin. Of course sometimes one needs to examine a coin at different angles to detect slight doubling seen on certain die varieties that it is better to examine a coin under magnification then to decipher the die variety with imagery.