Pictured is a 1900 Morgan silver dollar. It was minted in New Orleans which is indicated by the small O above the D and O in the word dollar on the reverse of the coin.
Morgan dollars were designed by George T. Morgan. They were minted from 1878-1904 and again for one year in 1921. They were produced in Philadelphia, New Orleans, Denver, Carson City and San Francisco. The composition is .900 silver .100 copper. Its diameter is 38.1 millimeters. Its weight is 26.73 grams.
The New Orleans mint was one of three southern mints to begin producing coins in the 1830’s. It began minting coins in 1838. In 1861 Louisiana seceded from the union and state authorities seized the mint. The state transferred ownership to the confederates. For a short time it was used to make coins for the Confederacy. The U.S. army retook New Orleans in 1862 and the mint served as headquarters in New Orleans for Union troops. It was the only one of the three southern mints to produce coins after the Civil War. It began minting coins again in 1878 and continued to do so until 1909.
I photographed this coin with a Nikon coolpix s10 VR. I used two 100 watt bulbs in two separate gooseneck type lamps in close proximity to the coin, with no other light in the room. I photographed it laying flat and shooting straight down, holding the camera as steady as I could since I don’t have a tripod. The lens was about 2.5 inches away from the coin. Flash was off, macro was on.
It took me a lot of time to get pictures I was satisfied with, probably because I was photographing it through a holder. I’m still not 100% happy with them. But I am a newb when it comes to photography and these come very close to depicting the coin the way that it looks in hand. So I’m not too displeased with the final result.
This coin was graded MS63 by NGC.
Please note that some of the marks you see are on the slab and not the coin, particularly the light colored vertical marks on the obverse.
Obverse:
Reverse:
A different shot of the obverse:
Here is a pic I snapped really quick a second ago, showing the coin in the slab:
The coin almost looks golden in this picture that I got while playing with the lighting, but its obviously not the way the coin really looks:
The lighting and technique I mentioned previously only applies to the first two pictures. All comments are welcome. I'm still a newb with the coin pics, because I only have a camera with macro when my brother is visiting. But I'm getting better.
It is not blast white, but it does have luster. And I think I captured that in the first obverse pics and in the only reverse pic I posted.
Hybrid Mode
