I have finished reading the first six chapters of this book, and have to put this in the "must have" category for all collectors regardless of experience. Q David Bowers is one of the worlds most prominent numismatists and his no nonsense approach shows you the reader how to acquire a keen eye helping you to grade properly and make good purchases. The beginning of the book touches bases such as the importance and history of grading, to understanding the surfaces of coins, as well as the "hush hush" topic of coin cleaning and conservation in our hobby. The grading section covers each series and explains its history, what to look for in strike and sharpness, as well as availability. He then explains what to look for in each grade from uncirculated on down to fair for some issues. Each section is accompanied by color pictures for each grade. In my opinion this book is a breath of fresh air compared to other grading books available. Every collector should own this book!
Oh woo, I had bought that with my last book store coupon, now i'm really looking forward to reading it.
Questions On Taking Best Picture: Just a couple of "dumb" questions that a photograhic novice (maybe, on my best day! ) would like to know. I use the default settings on my Galaxy S9 smartphone.... I don't use any of the preset things like NIGHT or SPORT or whatever (should I ??) and use the default Photo function/settings with resolution set to max or near-max. After all, I am taking pictures of stationary coins, not football players jumping in action so I figure messing around with ISO or light variables or whatever is beyond my skill set OR need. Pictures are set to maximum resolution (4K quality ~ 4000 x 2300 pixels). One.......since these are simple coin photos, am I right to assume that any specialty settings are overkill and aren't going to make a dimes worth of difference ? Two......is there a DIFFERENCE if I zoom in a bit with the smartphone camera and THEN take the pic with more of a close-up/less background....OR....take it without any zoom (showing the coin and some background) and then use the close-up function on the phone itself or you people using the zoom feature on this site to make the image bigger ? In other words...is there any resolution or clarity lost by me initially zooming or is it even better if I do it first and then eliminate the need to zoom on the smartphone when I look at the pics or when you people see them ?
If you are "grading" MS or PF coins based on the photos and/or using the photos to compare the "Grade" of another MS or PF. coin, then any settings are of no assistance, regardless of the technology applied.
I'm just interested in maximizing the quality of photos for this site. GDJMSP has shown how the lighting can dramatically change the way a coin looks (wish I had bookmarked the posts ). So I'm aware of that....I really am just interested in taking glare-free pics that show the coin(s) as they really are. Like I said, I pretty much just use default settings...maximum resolution....and hold the phone steady and CLICK.
I once bought a seated half that the photos showed a lovely blueish rainbow around the edge. In hand that lovely rainbow was near black. LOL…. I played around with that half and was able to recreate the photo though. And in that I found a way to make my simple coin photos look reasonably acceptable. I go in the bathroom under direct light and set them on a dark felt jewelry box (don’t tell my wife). I angle the box slightly so the light isn’t glaring and steady the camera and I been pretty happy with what I get. Whole key is keeping the camera phone still. Hard for a shaky old man to do.
Yeah, make sure you have the anti-shake feature activated and it does a good job of eliminating minute jitter. Not everybody has 20/10 vision so the tiniest "blur" won't be seen by folks who enlarge it on their PCs. I took this of a 2013 Enhance Finish ASE today...you can tell I must have moved a drop on the left side because the obverse is not as razor-sharp as the reverse and I took them both at the same time side-by-side.
I should probably give this book a second look. I remember seeing a grading book by Bowers over 10 years ago. I didn’t buy it because I had the ANA Grading Guide, which is quite good. During these days of “grade-flation, it’s good to reset your grading eye now and then. When I was a dealer, it was good to review my collection after spending several hours reviewing the optimistically graded stuff in some dealers boxes.
