Thread: Photographing an entire coin collection?

Has anyone ever photographed their entire coin collection? I can imagine this will quickly become a burden especially for those collectors that have hundreds of coins. I have thought about it and at times thought it as enjoyable but sometimes I think its just too much to do.

And I'm not talking about just taking a picture of the coin as is. I mean photoshopping and making a canvas and all. Right now I'm trying to focus on just taking pictures of my better stuff, but I find myself sometimes not even having the time for that.

Yea i catalogue mainly my more valuable coins i simply don't have the time to get a lot of my silver and other generic coins in collection. Also i found it much easier to grab pictures of the coin as you get them before you throw it into an air tite or an album, since it is a shame to break the airtite open and make it worthless just so that you can get your picture.

I am currently in the process. It is long and tedious even though I don't have a ton of coins in my collection.

I haven't taken pics of my entire collection yet, been working toward that goal, but for now I have just worked on my two cent sets, large cents and half cents.

The pic below contains individual pics of obverse and reverse, then each pic is set onto the black background with text boxes and border then saved as a 11 x 14 for printing.

Not only have I photographed my entire collection several times, I also create full collection displays using photoshop.



Kinda like a virtual Dansco!

I too have photographed my entire collection including paper currency as well. I have a separate collection from the Columbian Exposition, a collection of currency holders and another with postal items that are documented this way besides. Everything has a very detailed write up on it, and is completely entered on a spreadsheet program with all bills of sale and purchase reciepts.

I have many not worth photographing too as well as some too hard to photograph :/ The closest thing I've done were these.

I have been imaging my entire collection the last year or two. I currently have 700+ coins imaged and a few thousand to go. It does become very tedious, but I really enjoy it. It's one of the things that really keeps me interested in collecting. The one thing that sucks now though, is since I started imaging, I have become much better at it and bought a new camera. Now I have the urge to go back and re-shoot most of the ones I did last year.

I really think folks who have valuable coins need to take pictures. It's good to have a record of them if they get stolen, or something happens to you.

Just last week I had to take a break from U.S. Coins and move onto German and Canadian. I was getting sick of seeing Jefferson's face. Bam:





-greg

I have photographed my entire collection, except the bags of circulated wheaties. If it's worth more than $5 or so, then I have imaged it.

What Greg mentioned above is a real hang-up though. I have photographed a few hundred of my coins, and in the process have gone from what I'd say was an "ok" photographer, to what I now consider professional quality. Unfortunately, that was a 2-3 year process to get from point A to point B, and so many of my older images are "c-r-a-p" in my book -- but, I need to have probably 3-4 months of weekends to reimage all of my coins.

Looks like I have a lot of catching up to do on photographing my coins. I wanted to photograph my Morgan collection and even though its not huge it is quite a bit of coins. And looking back at my early pictures I have noticed I have improved and now want to retake those pictures. Except they're all in airtites now and I have to dig them out.

Originally Posted by icerain

Looks like I have a lot of catching up to do on photographing my coins. I wanted to photograph my Morgan collection and even though its not huge it is quite a bit of coins. And looking back at my early pictures I have noticed I have improved and now want to retake those pictures. Except they're all in airtites now and I have to dig them out.

Oh man do I hate wrestling with airtites. I don't mind shooting through the plastic, but I always prefer to pop them out.

I do not have the skill to capture the toning on many of my coins. What I want to do once I hit the 50 mark is have all of my Franklin Halves professionally photographed and create a shutterbug photo book with them. You can go to any bestbuy and ask someone in electronics (camera section) about shutterbug albums.

I don't mind taking photos but as you say, it could become a burden. A lot of stuff isn't very photogenic and it just isn't worth it to me. My criteria for photo taking is foreign stuff, commemoratives, currency, something unique to the collection or most stuff valued over $100.
I honestly wouldn't want a collection of photographs for a large part of my collection even if somebody did it for me. Anything I want to look at has already been done and is on my computer.

Originally Posted by PennyGuy

I haven't taken pics of my entire collection yet, been working toward that goal, but for now I have just worked on my two cent sets, large cents and half cents.

The pic below contains individual pics of obverse and reverse, then each pic is set onto the black background with text boxes and border then saved as a 11 x 14 for printing.

I complement you. Very professional job. Nice, very nice.

Could always scan them in too, like these beauties